Heart and Mind, Blood and Nerves
Maria Lux
July 5-27, 2025
Opening Reception
Saturday, July 5, 5-8 pmOpen Hours
Sat-Sun 12-5 pmdrop in or by appointment
Email info@carnationcontemporary.com
to schedule a visit
This installation of new work by Maria Lux looks at venomous snakes—bringers of health and death, and linking our distant past with modern knowledge.
Snakes have a persistent association with both healing and harm. Their venom contains risk and remedy, pain and potential. From antidotes made out of venom itself, to modern bioprospectors searching for the next billion-dollar drug—snakes and their venom have been used as healing agents for millenia—and cause hundreds of thousands of human deaths each year. Since the beginning, our intertwined relationship with snakes has been marked by a quest for knowledge, whether it's the evolutionary theory that the avoidance of venomous snakes was instrumental in the development of human intelligence itself, or studies that show our fears and preconscious reactions to snakes are uniquely built into our very DNA. Recently, news outlets reported on the promising story of a snake-enthusiast who methodically allowed himself to be bitten by venomous snakes over 200 times in the hope that his own blood would create a universal anti-venom, but he is just one person in a long line who have sought invincibility to venoms through self-immunization. Whether these sacrifices and experiments lead to life-saving drugs or not, scientists all over the world look to the complexity and mystery of venom to unlock new understandings of medicine, immunology, physiology, and pharmacology. True to their many legends, snakes today can still be seen as guardians of ancient knowledge as well as yet-undiscovered secrets, and teach us things about who they and we are. Heart and Mind, Blood and Nerves considers the convergence of myth and medicine, storytelling and science, and caution and curiosity coiled around snakes.
Snakes have a persistent association with both healing and harm. Their venom contains risk and remedy, pain and potential. From antidotes made out of venom itself, to modern bioprospectors searching for the next billion-dollar drug—snakes and their venom have been used as healing agents for millenia—and cause hundreds of thousands of human deaths each year. Since the beginning, our intertwined relationship with snakes has been marked by a quest for knowledge, whether it's the evolutionary theory that the avoidance of venomous snakes was instrumental in the development of human intelligence itself, or studies that show our fears and preconscious reactions to snakes are uniquely built into our very DNA. Recently, news outlets reported on the promising story of a snake-enthusiast who methodically allowed himself to be bitten by venomous snakes over 200 times in the hope that his own blood would create a universal anti-venom, but he is just one person in a long line who have sought invincibility to venoms through self-immunization. Whether these sacrifices and experiments lead to life-saving drugs or not, scientists all over the world look to the complexity and mystery of venom to unlock new understandings of medicine, immunology, physiology, and pharmacology. True to their many legends, snakes today can still be seen as guardians of ancient knowledge as well as yet-undiscovered secrets, and teach us things about who they and we are. Heart and Mind, Blood and Nerves considers the convergence of myth and medicine, storytelling and science, and caution and curiosity coiled around snakes.