SCORIATED ASTEROID

17″ x 20″

FLYING ROCK BURNT TO A CRISP

Taking exception to my love for rich and vibrating colors, I am imagining a dead landscape. The colors are black and white, greys and browns. These are the colors of early photography suggesting a wonderful, quiet, nostalgic beauty.

Does a shaped and protruding canvas create a more “modern” image, using such a limited palette? Does the subject matter help? I have even collaged photos of actual meteor fragments and attempted to recreate textures to indicate the asteroidʼs surface. It is a picture of lifelessness in endless orbit, feeling serious and grave.

But gravity is the answer. It changes orbits and at some point this asteroid will be pulled toward a new home, ending in a fiery, fragmented burst of energy, streaking through the sky.

STAR CLUSTER

41″ x 41″

A GATHERING IN A MAGELLANIC CLOUD

These clusters are common all over the universe. They are usually the birthplace of stars which are often red giants that eventually disintegrate, providing the material for a new star birth. All these stars are held together by enormous gravitational pull which might lead to the creation of new galaxies.

This painting does not depict a particular gathering of stars, but rather describes its power and force.

SCARAB NEBULA

29″ x 29″

TWIN BRIGHT BEETLE BURSTS

Often, nebulae will break up into an hourglass shape with a bright center and two similar shapes extending from that center. Although this painting is of an invented nebula, I imagined that the shape and “colorscape” of this cosmic entity might be reminiscent of a scarab beetle.

Scarab Beetles often are covered in gem-like brilliant colors. Here I have used opposite complimentary colors on a pebble textured surface to emphasize those features. Since the scarab beetle in ancient Egypt represents resurrection and immortality, I would like to assume that this imaginary nebula will never die (or at least will be reborn).

LITTLE BANG

30″ x 47″

A STAR IS BORN

Since the Big Bang Theory attempts to explain the creation of the universe, we might assume there is some equivalent interpretive language on how suns are created. But it is only a guess.

This paintings works with the idea that everything starts from the center and moves outward. And the expansion is not always perfectly spherical but may be irregular in a particular direction. The image depicts both fragmentation and fluidity which may be the result of nebulae cataclysms. But this is also only a guess.

I am using awkward color harmonies, since purple and chartreuse are a stressful combination, but it helps the movement and dynamics of the explosive occurrence. The painting is on masonite expressing stability and the medium is oil paint which never dries.

BLACK HOLE BRUNCH

12″ x 13″

A PLANET GETS SWALLOWED

For this black hole, the sun was breakfast. The planet is waiting to be a mid-morning snack. 

Although invisible, a black hole is probably the most powerful force in the universe. Nothing can escape its gravitational pull that swallows everything in its path, even radiation and x-rays. And now it is confirmed that a large black hole is at the core of our galaxy; a monstrous object with the mass of four million suns in a space smaller than Mercury’s orbit. It is also the glue that holds our galaxy together.

This painting, by contrast, is quite small. It has quarter inch curved strips of wood painted in vivid colors and an undulating surface all pointing to the center where a planet is trying to escape in vain. Depicting this extraordinary power can be equally effective on a small surface.