Overgrown Neuron, a monumental stainless-steel sculpture by Roxy Paine representing a giant nerve cell, is the latest addition to the sculpture park at UT Southwestern’s Seldin Plaza. It’s accompanied by a group of drawings and studies for the sculpture at Talley Dunn Gallery that shed light on the artist’s methods. Paine’s is the 12th sculpture donated to the medical center by Dr. Joseph Goldstein, a Nobel laureate (1985, cholesterol metabolism) and member of the faculty at UT Southwestern.
As well as the fascination of the gleaming, polished surfaces of Paine’s work, it also creates uncanny effects of scale: the neuron is realistically shaped, but the sculpture blows up the cell to hundreds of thousands of times its size in nature, making it seem somehow unnatural. The gallery show deepens and enriches this experience, presenting drawn and modeled versions of the shape that are just a couple of feet in sizes — a scale easiest for the human eye to study closely. Their spidery tendrils suggest uprooted turnips or radishes.
Art lovers will be familiar with Paine’s similarly monumental rendering of two conjoined trees, which has presided over the garden at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for many years. Now, thanks to Goldstein, Big D has finally caught up with Cowtown.
Roxy Paine’s sculpture Overgrown Neuron is in Seldin Plaza at UT Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas.
“Roxy Paine: Overgrown Neuron” continues through May 2 at Talley Dunn Gallery, 5020 Tracy St., Dallas. Open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. Free. 214-521-9898. talleydunn.com.