When loveland artist Angela Canada Hopkins lost her father to cancer 10 years ago, she turned to a nontraditional sort of therapy to deal with her grief: Armed with brushes and paint, she focused on an unlikely subject—cancerous cells—and channeled her emotion onto canvas. Since then, she’s been studying photographs of basic cancer cell structures at a microscopic level and rendering her interpretations to create colorful acrylic galaxies with a 3-D quality. “They are meant to be beautiful expressions of hope, even though they’re inspired by a tragic disease,” Canada Hopkins says. “It’s my mission to bring awareness to the subject so people can literally envision cancer in a different respect, no matter if they themselves are fighting cancer, if they are doctors treating a patient with cancer, or if they’re scientists developing a cure.”

Find it: Visit canadahopkins.com.

5280 October 2011
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