Chemistry major examines pigments in art
Senior Lindsey Ioos used portable X-ray technology in partnership with Carolina art conservators and archaeologists.
Senior Lindsey Ioos enjoyed exploring her passions for both science and art at Carolina.
Ioos, a chemistry major from Raleigh, is also pursuing double minors in art history and classical humanities. Her interdisciplinary studies made the senior chemistry capstone course, CHEM 550L: Chemistry, Conservation and CURE: Pigments and Dyes of Antiquity, all the more appealing.
The class was created by teaching assistant professor Jade Fostvedt in collaboration with chemistry colleagues Michel Gagné, Kathleen Nevins and Tyler Motley, all in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. In the class (featured on WRAL-TV last spring), around 70 students synthesized historical and contemporary pigments for analysis in collaboration with the Ackland Art Museum.
Using a pXRF device can allow conservators to examine artworks safely without removing them from a museum. (Photo by Donn Young)
Gagné, the Mary Ann Smith Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, was Ioos’ instructor for the spring 2026 class and invited her to pursue a parallel independent study project with the Ackland. Through a literature review, Ioos discovered the use of portable X-ray fluorescence technology by art conservators — a device that uses an X-ray power source to screen for inorganic elements in pigments, metals and ceramics.
Gagné and Carolina geologist Drew Coleman connected Ioos with the Research Laboratories of Archaeology, which had a pXRF device she could borrow and experts willing to operate it.
“A lot of the papers that I was reading were using pXRF to supplement the use of infrared photography,” Ioos said. “It’s a quantitative, nondestructive and portable method for examining artworks, so I thought it would be a cool opportunity to use it to analyze pigments.”
Collaboration in the conservation studio
On March 30, Ioos met Grace White, paper conservator at the Ackland Art Museum, along with anthropology doctoral student Regina Lowe and RLA research archaeologist Mary Beth Fitts at the museum’s second floor conservation studio.
Grace White and Lindsey Ioos go through selected artworks at the Ackland Art Museum’s conservation studio. (photo by Donn Young)
Several colorful artworks were spread across a large table in the studio for scanning: 19th century Japanese prints donated to the chemistry department, 19th century Japanese and Persian paintings, a 17th century Dutch print from the Ackland’s collection.
Lowe had used the technology before to test 18th and 19th century ceramics for her research, but White employed it for the first time to analyze works on paper at the Ackland.
The pXRF device allows conservators to identify artworks more accurately in a certain time period and location without removing them from a museum.
The use of pigments is related to commerce and culture. “For example, Indian yellow, one of the pigments we examined, was pretty much used around India and Southeast Asia and we found it in a Persian painting, which makes sense,” Ioos said. Japanese prints from the late 1850s or 1860s used synthetic dyes invented in Europe in 1856. “Their use rises up in Japan because of trade that was happening.”
Ioos presented her findings from the art analysis at the annual Ackland Symposium on May 1.
“It’s nice to see how UNC supports interdisciplinary work, and it was wonderful that everyone was so willing to collaborate and to help me with my project,” she said.
A career in chemistry, a lifelong love of art
After graduating from Carolina, Ioos will attend Ohio State University in the fall for a doctorate in inorganic materials chemistry. She’s leaning toward a research and development chemist job but will always find time to pursue art as a hobby.
“Art and art history is a passion of mine, and a way in which I’ve enjoyed life outside of the lab,” she said. “I plan to keep my love of art with me in whatever way I can while I’m navigating graduate school and my career.”
