24″ x 24″

A PLANET WITHOUT OCEANS OR LAND

This may not be our Mercury, but one in another solar system far away. It is too close to its sun but at a distance where it does not evaporate.

This painting is experimenting with space in a landscape that we are not familiar with. There is nothing green to balance the overall color. Hot colors all the way to the horizon and the sky is purple and turquoise, pulling the eye forward. Yellow streams of melting material confuses distance.

What fun it is to play with space…to create holes in the painting suggesting canyons and bas-relief enhancing the mountains.

A MOBIUS STRIP ON A HEAVENLY TRIP
36″ x 44″

INSTANT SPACE TRAVEL IMAGINED

This painting explores these images by dealing with a major direction in contemporary paintings. That is the depiction of ambiguous space and abstract forms. It is not like dealing with the landscape or still life where you know the position of every element and you have a horizon to assist you. Here you can allow all convention to fly out the window…into space.

The segment of a Mobius strip that is the center of the painting is a play on the idea of traveling through the universe. It is one of the enigmas in geometry where you can follow a straight line on its surface and return to the identical spot where you started, which would make it a one-dimensional surface on a three-dimensional form. Einstein thought that traveling through the universe would happen in a similar manner.

Collaged and painted into this picture are some Hubble images of a star cluster, a nebulae and a galaxy, all not in the correct position, which is the benefit of working abstractly.

VENUS AT DUSK
56″ x 43″

SUNSET ON A DEADLY CLOUDED PLANET

On an imagined exoplanet in a faraway solar system is another Venus, where the surface is covered by noxious gases. Mountains protrude and colors are distorted by its unique atmosphere.

In this painting, the colors can become the artist’s whimsy, since we have no idea how light is reflected on the planet’s strange surface. The end result is an awkward harmony of dissonant hues.

The free shape format moves away from the traditional composition of a central focus and makes the edges more prominent. The sun at the top overwhelms and the mountain extensions on the other three edges become more important.

STELLAR LIFESPAN
41″ x 32″

FROM GAS TO MASS TO FULMINATION

A star starts with cosmic dust mixed with gas and a lot of gravity. It can live for billions of years. Then one day it starts to enlarge, having difficulties fusing hydrogen and helium. It may then grow into a red giant or, if conditions are just so, result in a cataclysmic explosion forming a super nova.

This painting is dimensional. It has cutaways showing a calm background of stars on its back panel. In front, in a diagonal design, is a history of birth, life and death.

HUBBLE MIRRORS. HOURGLASS NEBULA.
48” X 51”

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Additionally, the mirrors introduce a play between direct and reflected images. Although several colored lines appear to run continuously across the top of the painting in the front view, the images inside the rectangle are actually a reflection, whereas those on the both sides of the rectangle are painted representations of Hubble images of nebulae. In this way, the continuum runs linearly through different interpretations of what the human eye actually sees (i.e., images seen through a mirror and through a telescope). These features challenge the traditional approach to composition and visualizing space.

The hourglass shape of the nebula could serve as a metaphor to remind us that time might be running out for us on earth, even if space and time itself continue forever. It is a cosmic wake-up call.