| The inaugural canvas of the Genomic Works series,
Hiroshi Sugimoto established the system’s core architecture while quietly embedding its first mutation. The chromatic bar runs cleanly across the composition, anchoring the work in visual logic. The first band features a topographic elevation diagram—suggesting terrain, mapping, and inherited structure.
But it’s the third bar that breaks the grid. Split horizontally, it pairs two distinct visual lineages: above, a metallic silver illustration of Old West-era men rendered in vivid color; below, a black and grey halftone image of a Joshua Reynolds portrait. The split bar would later become a marker of genetic anomaly—an encoded fracture, a moment of unresolved inheritance.
Hiroshi Sugimoto doesn’t just begin the series—it foreshadows it. The canvas is both blueprint and warning: a system built to hold complexity, contradiction, and the quiet ruptures that make identity feel real.
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