11/14/2025
Every year, scientists from around the world join a unique competition called the Agar Art Contest — where the “paint” is alive.
Instead of colors from a palette, they use real bacteria grown inside petri dishes.
Each microbe creates its own natural pigment:
🟥 Serratia — bright red
🟨 Bacillus — warm yellow
🟪 Chromobacterium — deep violet
🟩 Pseudomonas — teal green
🟦 Engineered E. coli — glowing blue and neon UV colors
Using toothpicks, loops, and tiny swabs as brushes, scientists “draw” on a gel surface — and then wait.
Over the next 24–72 hours, the artwork slowly appears as the bacteria grow and the colors deepen.
The final pieces are breathtaking:
✨ Van Gogh’s Starry Night made of glowing microbes
✨ Portraits and mandalas built from living cells
✨ A peacock created with seven different bacterial species
✨ Landscapes, galaxies, trees — all alive
The best part?
After photographing the masterpiece, the art is destroyed for safety. Nothing lasts forever — not even living paintings.
