Conversation with Gene Wright

Gene Wright was watching an episode of “Law & Order” when an object caught his eye. The detectives on the television crime drama were investigating a veterinarian. In the background on the possible suspect’s office wall hung an illustration. Wright instantly recognized the picture. He and his wife, Allison, had created the drawing.
“They totally scammed it,” said Wright, a professor of scientific illustration at the University of Georgia. “We didn’t get any credit for it.”
Gene and Allison Lucas Wright are both scientific illustrators. They own Biomedical Visual Concepts, a company that contracts with veterinarians, drug companies and academics, among others, to create diagrams, patient brochures and textbook illustrations.
Wright also teaches in the same department at the same university where he earned his undergraduate degree. After graduating from the University of Georgia in 1987 with a bachelor’s of fine arts in interdisciplinary studies, scientific illustration, he went onto the Medical College of Georgia, where he earned a master’s of science in medical illustration. In 1992, he returned to UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art, this time as faculty, where he has remained ever since.
Wright teaches courses on techniques, design, and color, all in scientific illustration. Scientific illustration consists of two primary areas--- natural science illustration and medical illustration. Natural science illustrators draw images of insects, plants, vertebrates, invertebrates, fish, reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans and shells. The Smithsonian, for example, has a large collection of natural science illustrators.
Medical illustrators tend to depict human and animal anatomy, and interactions on the body, such as surgeries. The purpose of scientific education is purely for education, Wright says. Medical illustrations can inform doctors and patients alike.
“Somewhere along somebody drew it, it’s in a book somewhere and a doctor read it,” Wright says.
Students who study scientific illustration are required to take an introductory biology course, an introductory chemistry course and courses in vertebrate anatomy and human physiology.
“Since illustrations are used purely for education, if you’ve never had those subjects and you try to draw those things chances are you’re going to get it wrong, which makes the illustration pretty much useless,” Wright says.
“Having a well-rounded understanding of science is the beginning stages of being able to develop an accurate scientific illustration.”
Many of Wright’s students go onto one of the handful of graduate schools focusing on medical illustration to gain more specialized knowledge of a subject area and take more in-depth scientific courses.
At UGA, students learn mostly from insects, plants and animal bones because subjects can be found in the nearby natural history museum.
Biomedical Visual Concepts’ primary clients are veterinarians. Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company, is another big client for Wright’s company. Wright produced illustrations for a drug atlas Pfizer distributed to veterinarians along with the drugs they ordered to treat animal diseases. Wright enjoys drawing cats and dogs. He takes a picture of an animal he likes, draws the animal and then works on drawing the skeleton and anatomy that needs to be depicted. He relies on knowledge of muscular development and physiological issues to be able to illustrate what happens physiologically. He has illustrated how drugs interact in the body and what happens during an allergic reaction, for example.
Wright says he always liked to draw and create things and recalls doodling as a child. Despite growing up with artistic abilities, Wright planned to major in business at UGA. A macroeconomics course changed his course and sent him to the art school, he says.
Owning a company has enabled Wright to blend his interests in business with his love of scientific illustration.
Before computers, Wright would create his drawings with pencil, water colors, air brush, pen and ink, but now he uses his laptop to do most of the work, relying on software like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to serve as his canvass and tools. He prefers scientific illustration to other areas of art.
“It’s all draw what you see and I’m more of a draw what you see than draw what you think or feel,” he says.
He also likes the acceptance that comes from two distinct audiences.
“(Artists) love [scientific illustration],” he says. “They just like the thought of art being used to educate, especially when it’s a subject matter most people are familiar with, but know nothing about. Scientists really like it because they read it. They use it.”
His favorite illustration was a collage he created for the cover for an animal physiology textbook. There were illustrations of sight as represented by the cellular level of the retina, the digestive system shown through the cellular level of the microvillo of the intestine, the cell transfer process, the anatomy of a goat, and depictions of a dog.
Wright says having his work published in National Geographic would be the ultimate reward.
For now, he enjoys seeing his work in patient education brochures, in doctor’s offices, in biology textbooks and even on “Law & Order.”