Artist Luke Jerram
Luke Jerram has created a number of extraordinary art projects which have excited and inspired people around the globe. Luke Jerram’s practice involves the creation of sculptures, installations, live arts projects. Further information on Jerram’s entire practice can be found on lukejerram.com.
The Glass Microbiology sculptures are in museum collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, Wellcome Collection in London and the Museum of Glass in Shanghai. They are also regularly displayed in exhibitions around the globe and sold to private collectors. Famous pop stars, celebrities and scientists own the works.
Jerram often works in partnership with scientific institutions to develop new microbes for the series, including partnerships with Wellcome Trust, Pirbright Institute, Duke University, University of Sheffield, UK and Micropia, Amsterdam.
In 2010, Jerram received the 25th Rakow Award for the series from the Corning Museum of Glass, New York. In 2009, his sculptures were presented at the Mori Museum, Tokyo and in 2015 his sculptures were presented at ArtScience Museum, Singapore alongside Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus.
Watch this clip of Jerram’s Malaria artwork being sold on the Channel 4, Four Rooms television programme.
His transparent and colourless glassworks of viruses consider how the artificial colouring of scientific microbiological imagery, affects our understanding of these phenomena. See these examples of HIV imagery. If some images are coloured for scientific purposes, and others altered simply for aesthetic reasons, how can a viewer tell the difference? How many people believe viruses are brightly coloured? Are there any colour conventions and what kind of ‘presence’ do pseudocoloured images have that ‘naturally’ coloured specimens don’t? How does the choice of different colours affect their reception?
Photographs of Jerram’s glass artworks are now used widely in medical journals, text books and media stories and are seen as useful representations of virology within the scientific community. His work has been presented in the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and on the front cover of Nature Magazine. During the Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic the sale of his sculptures raised money for charity whilst also being used for science communication.
The sculptures are designed in consultation with virologists from around the world, using a combination of different scientific photographs and models. They are made in collaboration with glassblowers Kim George, Brian Jones, Norman Veitch & Andy Thompson.
A Sense of Scale
The virus sculptures are approximately 1,000,000 times larger than the actual viruses.
Sale and Loans of artwork
Sculptures are for sale to private collectors and public museums. Artworks are signed, dated and limited editions of just 5. See the PDF of Glass Microbiology Catalogue for artworks currently available.
Contact studio@lukejerram.com for a catalogue with prices. Please state the currency you would like. Some artworks are available to view in the studio in Bristol, UK or alternatively you can book a Zoom or Skype appointment to view them. Collections of works can also be loaned for exhibitions.
International Awards
Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield 2023-2024
Honorary Degree – Doctorate of the Arts, University of Gloucestershire 2022
Honorary Degree – Doctor of Letters from the University of Bristol. 2020
Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences, UWE 2018
Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence at the University of Bristol 2017
Senior Research Fellowship at CFPR, University of West of England 2012-2015
Fellowship at Museum of Glass, Washington, 2011
25th Rakow Award from The Corning Museum of Glass, 2010
EPSRC, PPE Grant with ISVR, University of Southampton, 2009
ACE Grants for the Arts Programme, 2010
Nominated for Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Visual Artist, 2009 & 2005
Nominated for Artes Mundi 4 Prize, 2009
Institute of Medical Image Award for HIV sculpture, 2007
UK Clark Digital Arts Bursary, Watershed Media Centre, 2006
AHRC Arts and Science Fellowship at UWE, 2005-2006
Drawing Inspiration Award received for educational workshops, 2006
Arts and Business Award, Strike a Match, 2006
NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and Arts) Fellowship, 2002-2005
ACE Arts Council Touring grant, 2001
Da2 Digital Arts Development Agency Clarkes Digital Bursary, 1999
Museum Collections:
Jerram’s artworks are in 70+ museum and institution collections around the world:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
European Museum of Modern Glass
Natural History Museum, Kuwait
Corning Museum, New York
Museum of Glass, Washington
Barry Art Museum, Norfolk, USA
Knoxville Museum of Art, USA
Shanghai Museum of Glass, China
The Collection – Lincoln Museum, UK
Museum of Health & Medicine, University of Tokyo
Cosmo Caixa, Barcelona
Arkansas Arts Center, USA
Deutshes Hygiene-Museum, Germany
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, UK
MUSE, Trento, Italy
Technical University of Denmark
University of Melbourne, Australia
Bristol and Bath Science Park, UK
Chrysler Museum, USA
Chazen Museum, Wisconsin, USA
Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Germany
The Wellcome Collection, London, UK
Bristol City Museum, UK
History of Science Museum, Oxford, UK
Eden Project, UK