A designer and artist boasting a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Michaella Janse van Vuuren employs technology as a creative tool to fuel her artistic vision. Fusing art and science, she uses digital design, additive manufacturing, and a 3D printer to actualize her imagination, bringing to life works inspired by mythology, the sea, electron microscope images, botanical drawings, and the geometry found in nature. After feeding meticulous plans for scale and mechanical functionality through computer software, a finished product is achieved that transcends the abilities of conventional processes, capturing, for example, the textured look of coral through laser sintering. From a studio outside of Pretoria, South Africa, van Vuuren emails her computer-based designs to manufacturers who return them, fully completed, wrapped in packages she excitedly opens to unveil designs that function and appear exactly how she envisioned.
