Hunter Cole

Artist and scientist Hunter Cole produces work that is inspired by science, but lives as art. Cole, who holds a PhD in genetics, reinterprets science through art.

Internationally recognized, Cole’s art includes paintings, photography, digital art, and living art using bioluminescent bacteria.

In addition to her PhD, Hunter Cole holds a Master's degree in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of California-Berkeley. During her time at the University of Wisconsin, Cole created a course entitled Biology Through Art. The course provided opportunities for students to create art while working in a biology laboratory. Cole also successfully implemented the Biology Through Art curriculum at Loyola University Chicago, an online version at Loyola University New Orleans, and is currently teaching a collaborative version at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Hunter Cole’s latest project, MOON GLOW: An Illuminated Living Art Experience, is a one-day immersive installation taking place on October 22, 2026. Inspired by the night sky and created with living drawings made from bioluminescent bacteria, its blue-green images glow in darkness and naturally fade over time, inviting visitors to travel through constellations, galaxies, and interactive displays on a journey through time and space.

Cole completed several photographic series using bioluminescent bacteria. Entitled Living Light: Photographs by the Light of Bioluminescent Bacteria, they include Living Drawings, Bioluminescent Portraits and Installations, Bioluminescent Weddings, and Bioluminescent Nudes. The works were shown in a solo exhibition at the ARC Gallery in Chicago in January 2018. More recently she has photographed a series of Bioluminescent Dancers.

On October 10, 2019, she created an installation of live glowing bacterial drawings filling a theatre at the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center in Arabi, LA, entitled GLOW: an Illuminated Living Art Experience.

Cole’s work also includes a permanent installation commissioned in 2008 by Loyola University Chicago for its Lakeshore campus. The large public art installation, entitled Biological Domains, is comprised of 14 paintings, which depict specific areas in biology. The installation incorporates LED lighting timed to create changing effects in the overall appearance of the installation throughout the day.

In 2015, Cole completed a residency at the prestigious SymbioticA laboratory at the University of Western Australia in Perth. SymbioticA is the first research lab of its kind that provides opportunities for artists and researchers to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department. While at SymbioticA, Cole began work on her project, The Hidden Suffering of Women with Endo, which focuses on endometriosis and its effects on women living with the disease. Endometriosis is a common but often misunderstood condition whereby endometrial tissue grows outside the uterus in other parts of the body. Endometriosis can result in extreme pain and infertility. One in ten women have endometriosis.

Hunter Cole’s art has been exhibited internationally including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and the Czech Republic.

Cole has presented numerous seminars on art and science including at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Dialogue Between Science and Art Workshop in Hluboka, Czech Republic, and SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia.

Additionally, Hunter Cole co-authored “Art and Genetics” with Joe Davis, Dana Boyd and Marek Wieczorek, published in the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS). She has been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, including Science, The Scientist, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate, the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Muy Interesante (Spain), Le Monde (France), and Beaux Arts magazine (France).