Astronomy, The Cosmos, and Space

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I was so moved and awe-struck  after seeing the amazing images taken by the Hubble Telescope,  that I began a series of paintings of Astronomy/Space Art under the heading  COSMOS.

 

​​Even more than the images, I was inspired by the following passage on the Hubble Website:

 

"Hubble chose an area of the sky devoid of all stars, and left two infra-red cameras on for eleven days. The spot covered was one-tenth of one-millionth of the sky, in which  10 thousand galaxies were found, 13 billion light years away”.

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This had such  a profound impact on my imagination, that I knew that COSMOS, Space Art was something that was going to be part of my work for the foreseeable future.​

 

I found it absolutely enchanting that stars were exploding , being born/created, that whole galaxies were being formed, that stars were being  swallowed up in Black Holes and that there was a Deep Field, somewhere  “up there”, that has never been seen until now when all we can see with the naked eye are  wonderful,  mysterious,  tiny  glimmers.​

 

At my  2010 solo exhibition, titled AN AFFAIR WITH COLOUR  at Leoni Duff Galleries in Launceston, Tasmania, Astronomy /Space Art  or COSMOS was one of the featured subjects of the exhibition, and an entire gallery room devoted to it.​

 

Some of the Astronomy/Space Art  works were: COSMOS- Deep Field, COSMOS-Moons of Jupiter, COSMOS  Sunflower Galaxy, COSMOS Wheel of Light, COSMOS Turbulence, among others.​

 

Since the exhibition, I have  created more Astronomy/Space Art works inspired by the Transit of Venus in 2012.​

 

The painting “NOT STARS, BUT GALAXIES  was  a direct  emotional response to the information contained in the above passage on the Hubble website. It inspired awe and excitement about the natural world and the mysteries beyond the world we know which are being revealed  through the amazing ability of the Hubble telescope​​.

 

It is not surprising that these images have inspired a great deal of Astronomy/Space Art  by emerging and established artists.