A portrait painting of the inventor of DNA fingerprinting Sir Alec Jeffreys by Artist Sophie.. As you have probably noticed I have been very interested in painting celebrity portraits lately, and was bitten by the ‘narrative’ bug last year in 2018. Being a Leicestershire lass I was thrilled that such a world changing and humble celebrity was from my own area. This artwork has a DNA strand in the background for its narrative – it remains yet to be noticed on how glorious or destructive the DNA strand may become for our future. (The word ‘narrative’ is a way of describing a paintings meaning, theme, message etc.)

I used 3D paste in areas and painted this in watercolours onto a canvas size 38cm x 20cm. 4th Feb 2019. The full painting can be viewed on the PORTRAITS page of my Sophie Huddlestone full artist’s website.

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys invented DNA fingerprinting at the University of Leicester on the 10th September 1984. DNA fingerprinting has already helped millions of people with all its uses (such as proof of innocence or guilt for court cases, family blood line etc). Mother Nature has planned for our evolution up until this point. But the question for future generations is will this knowledge be trustworthy in our hands, I hope so. Such as removing illnesses via the DNA of the beginning cells of a life form, although I hope that my illness isn’t knocked out the chain because I use my bipolar for creating deep thinking emotional artworks. Also with equality, gene therapy could be a future in which a group of privileged people become stronger, smarter and more beautiful than the rest? The decisions will be made by our future generations, and I’m sure they will make our world a far better place by this incredible discovery. Imagining it’s pit falls is perhaps more science fiction than fact.