July 5, By Brian Slattery- "Kate Henderson’s Mitochondrial Eve stands in Kehler Liddell Gallery like an altar, a place to make an offering to art, science, and perhaps a higher power all at the same time. The figure in the middle, holding aloft a shape that evokes an egg, partakes of past representations of religious figures and fertility goddesses. The plants growing up around her suggest fecundity. But the letters floating around her give it away; it’s the protein sequence of DNA, the building blocks of life, that turn a double helix into a celebration of life. Henderson’s piece is part of “Our DNA,” the fifth annual juried show at the gallery space on Whalley Avenue in Westville, running now through July 25 and featuring work from more than 50 artists hailing from New Haven to Cyprus. Each artist was asked to respond, in their work, to the following statement: “We humans are biological siblings, belonging to the genus Homo, and as Sapiens, the last surviving species of our genus. The last year spoke loudly of divisions and differences, but for this exhibit, we ask you as artists to focus on our 99.9% shared genome. Using any tools or languages, explore the belief systems and vocabularies of our family tree that touch on our common physical or metaphorical DNA, our essential humanity, the soul of the Sapien.” The resulting show is full of pieces that do just that, emphasizing both our shared humanity and our connections to the world around us." 

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