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Astronomical Affects
ARTIST STATEMENT
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science.
Einstein
I am interested in the impact the heavens above have had and continue to have on our creative processes. From earliest records human beings have created stories and attributed fantastical powers to the universe and the heavenly bodies we see there. We revered the sun and moon and invented a litany of gods and goddesses. While we may not often worship the moon any more, we continue to imagine the potential of "out there". As science shows us a world never previously even imaginable, it opens up more than one universe of possibilities.
Encompassing the entire gallery in a cocoon of darkness, this body of work is a blend of constructed and painted images. Light flickers here and glows there, objects spin, images emerge from the walls.
Constructed of oil paint on papier maché, polystryene, and stryofoam with monofilament, wood, wire, paper clips, and sometimes electric motors, the sculptural and installation works refer to potential universes and the worlds within them. Close and familiar or distant and unknown, the possibilities seem endless.
As a comment on what we know while acknowledging what we do not know, the paintings are done one square inch at a time. A kinetic value, deriving from the installation pieces, exists even in the painted images. Essentially locating circles within a square, they are a philosophical, perhaps even spiritual, narrative.
In the fall of 2010 I met with Dr. Michael Reid. He was gracious enough to take the time to talk to me, to share, for a brief moment, some of his knowledge, and to offer his insight into the concepts behind this body of work.
Not since the days of Galileo and the first astronomical telescopes have the discoveries of astronomy so deeply impressed themselves upon the lay psyche. On the one hand, increasing urbanization and its unfortunate consequence--light pollution--has nearly severed the personal connection between people and the night sky. Yet, on the other, new generations of telescopes are radically revising our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it. Modern astronomical discoveries permeate the public consciousness, from public policy debates about the hazards of near-Earth asteroids, to theological conversations about the implications of the Big Bang theory, to the box-office dominance of grand stories of space exploration. As a species, we are developing an unprecedented, ever-expanding awareness of space.
Dr. Michael A. Reid
Assistant Professor
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
University of Toronto
The universe is, of course, mostly just space with nothing in it; the universe is in essence, mostly nothing. But not quite. There are the bits and pieces out there; comets, planets, moons, stars….