307 Westlake Avenue
Seattle, Washington
Linda Beaumont
Labyrinth, 2004
Laminated glass, painted steel
(Image © Linda Beaumont, 2004)

According to the artist, the two sections of Labyrinth in front of the main entrance to the SBRI Building are made “of light and color, with a rhythm that recalls stained glass windows. They glow in the morning light and wash color onto people as they enter the building. At night they shimmer and project their colors outward.” The specific order of colors in this work is derived directly from a chromographic representation of the genetic sequence of the Leishmania parasite. Leishmania, one of the parasites studied at SBRI, causes a disease called leishmaniasis, which affects 12 million people every year. Tucked into the primary images are nodes of color and electron microscopic images of disease-causing organisms.