Works from three major installations by Geraldine Ondrizek come together in the show "Tracing Genetic Inheritance: Recent Work by Geraldine Ondrizek" at the art gallery at The Evergreen State College. This is a highly unusual, beautiful and intelligent exhibition that combines science and art in ways that should open the mind and tease the eye.

Excuse me while I borrow from an excellently written press release: "Ondrizek has been creating multi-layered, thought-provoking works of art for more than 25 years.  She is a deep researcher and collaborator across disciplines, drawing on art, science, history, anthropology, psychology, biology, and so much more. Through her art she addresses issues of identity and relationships, memory and inheritance."

The large-scale installations presented here illustrate her studies in genetics are charts, scales and textbook illustrations writ large as visual art.

The most visually stunning of the three large installations (some smaller works also included) is "Chromosome Painting Edition II 1-X," which transforms textbook illustrations of chromosomes into 23 10-foot-high silk panels that hang floor-to-ceiling across an approximate 20-foot expanse of wall. The silk panels are transparent, and the colors are shimmering. Each strip is doubled with an almost exact panel a few feet behind, creating a fuzzy, out-of-sync look or feeling of double vision. Each section illustrates a type of cancer. It is ironic that representations of cancer can be so beautiful.

"Shades of White" comprises 32 boxes in buffed and coated steel that hang at approximate eye level. In each box is a silk scrim dyed in muted colors in various shades of off-white, purple, gold and silver. This installation fills almost the entire back quarter of the gallery. The metaphor is skin color. Viewers can wander through and see themselves and others through the various shades of white.

"mtDNA" takes illustrations of skin color a step further as it references eugenics, the controversially racist movement of the early 1900s that attempted to weed out "undesirable" traits through selective breeding. In this piece, the dyed silk pieces are mounted between wooden frames made to replicate screened porches. Aesthetically, this one is less attractive than the other works because the frames are too heavy and because of its placement as a barrier in the front of the gallery, but that heaviness and the barricade effect highlights the barriers erected against women because of race and gender.

Ondrizek is a Professor of Art and artist at Reed College in Portland. For the past 20 years, she has collaborated with genetic and medical researchers to make architectural-based installations. These installations have much to say about science and art, about gender and race, and how we humans see one another. To help the viewer grasp these complicated issues more completely, the installations are accompanied by thorough wall texts.

Before going, be sure to note the rather odd hours the gallery is open.

"Tracing Genetic Inheritance: Recent Work by Geraldine Ondrizek," noon to 4:30 p.m. Mon and Fri; 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tue; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wed and Thurs, through Dec. 7, The Evergreen State College Gallery, Library Building, 2700 Evergreen Parkway NW, Library 1st floor, Olympia, 360.867.5125, evergreen.edu