Image caption: Neeka-Lynn Devries is among the ten fourth-year Brock students showcasing their art in the Through a Window exhibition at Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts and the Niagara Arts Centre. Through a Window runs until Sunday, May 2.

Friday, April 24, 2026 | by Thuy Dam

The processes that keep organisms alive may be invisible, but they have inspired Neeka-Lynn Devries to create striking works of visual art.

“I’d always loved biology in high school,” she says the fourth-year Brock student. “And I’m in awe of the intricate processes working in our bodies.”

But studying science beyond high school was never Devries’ plan.

That changed at Brock. After enrolling in the Studio Art program, she also began taking biology courses as electives. Soon, she’d completed enough credits to earn a minor in Biological Sciences.

“Eventually I just loved it so much,” she said. “The course content just keeps getting cooler as you progress.”

A conversation with Heather VanVolkenburg, Academic Advisor/Liaison Officer in the Faculty of Mathematics and Science, opened up unique path that would allow Devries to pursue her interest in biology and her passion for art: an Integrated Studies program.

“The Integrated Degree was what I was looking for, and I just didn’t know it,” Devries says.

Now, she’s pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree integrating Biological Sciences and Studio Art.

“When I am in biology classes, I’m so inspired by the content that I feel compelled to make art about it,” she said. “I feel both disciplines complement each other perfectly.”

Driven by a sense of wonder at the unseen, she turns molecular processes into visual forms through painting.

“Knowing how miniscule everything is and that it’s going on inside you every single day is so wild to me. In my mind, it’s so beautiful and miraculous,” she says. “I want to translate what I see in my mind and share it because it’s so exciting. My hope is for others to recognize how incredible the world around us truly is.”

Devries is particularly interested in plants, which she describes as something beautiful everyone can relate to. Her work draws on everyday specimens, including begonias and orchids to garlic and citrus which have been rendered in acrylic with meticulous detail — both as whole forms and at the cellular level.

That attention to detail extends beyond the canvas. In one installation, she uses metal coils to represent DNA length, for example.

“In one of your cells that you can’t even see, you have two metres of DNA all coiled up,” she says. “And you have 37 trillion cells in your body.”

Devries also worked as a research assistant in Professor of Biological Sciences Fiona Hunter’s lab, where she illustrated mosquito pupal structures and helped maintain live colonies.

Her artwork is currently on exhibition in the Visual Arts Gallery at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts and at the Niagara Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines until Sunday, May 2.

The exhibition, Through a Window, showcases the work of ten fourth-year students in the 4F06 Honours Studio course and features artwork from their culminating capstone projects.

The exhibition title refers to the range of artistic practices, worldviews, and concepts that students have experimented with both academically and creatively. While their works may differ in appearance or intention, they are united through the pursuit of seeing the world in new and unexpected ways.

Looking ahead, Devries plans to continue her education journey through a master’s program.

“I haven’t learned enough of it yet,” she said. “I want to continue exploring more and then be able to get better at sharing it.”