Ramblings in Art and Space
By Greg Wing
Visible light binds and attracts our observations in art and space. Just because you can not see it, does not mean that it is not actually there. Think of the transformations in digital astrophotography and the Hubble Space Telescope revolution. We can now see better and further than just a short while ago. To think that which was unseen just a few years ago, now we can see and know about.
These paintings convey a memory transformed, a mood, an experience that can be seen and renewed with subsequent viewings. There is an unspoken sensuality in paint and the view created. Unlike music and writing we can experience a painting directly as a whole in the moment, instantaneously. Over time we can think rationally about the work and the experience grows.
One might wonder with all the technology available today why make a painting of a galaxy, a star, a nebula? Why paint what a photograph can reproduce so accurately? These paintings are not mere representations, but rather impressions of what I have seen with my telescope, read about in research and seen in images made with large telescopes. I think about what science tells us and predicts what we will know and things I have learned on my own from readings and life experience. These paintings ultimately acknowledge what is known and what is unseen; the unknowable mysteries.
As a life form born from star stuff, one might think we are so insignificant and about the harm we do to our surroundings thinking that we are so magnificent. Now we can see and know that we are a small part of what is out there connected to and from what is beyond our planet, Earth. Are we in decline, or can we overcome human ignorance? Either way, the views in these paintings even though views in time of long, long ago remind us that our own time is just a blip on a universal scale. I for one am a skeptic, witness to everyday human folly and yet, each day, I strive to overcome this skepticism. Beyond us are worlds unknowable, a seeming or real infinity which reminds us each of our responsibility to overcome our momentary issues and problems. Our momentary issues are nothing compared to the grandeur of the Universe; what is beyond in deepest space.
To my way of thinking the Universe is connected in a kind of scientific or, if you will allow, a certain spiritual connection, which is not meant at all to be corny, but rather personal and hard to talk about. Most of us ignore this. I do think that the past, present and future are intertwined and not separate. They exist simultaneously in the moment, and ever present (Well, that is a topic for more thoughts - another time).
So just what is it that I am trying to convey in these Astro-paintings? I like to think that I am acknowledging these beautiful deep sky objects, stars, galaxies and nebula and the unseen space, elements, compounds, gases and... all that dark dusty stuff. I also think about the unknown forces of dark energy and dark matter, in which a certain fuzziness I convey. This is the ambiguity in these art forms. Science and art are connected and they each influence their domain's at times predicting and confirming the known and what we wish to know. Ultimately, what a work of art reveals to you is the most important thing.
These paintings convey a memory transformed, a mood, an experience that can be seen and renewed with subsequent viewings. There is an unspoken sensuality in paint and the view created. Unlike music and writing we can experience a painting directly as a whole in the moment, instantaneously. Over time we can think rationally about the work and the experience grows.
One might wonder with all the technology available today why make a painting of a galaxy, a star, a nebula? Why paint what a photograph can reproduce so accurately? These paintings are not mere representations, but rather impressions of what I have seen with my telescope, read about in research and seen in images made with large telescopes. I think about what science tells us and predicts what we will know and things I have learned on my own from readings and life experience. These paintings ultimately acknowledge what is known and what is unseen; the unknowable mysteries.
As a life form born from star stuff, one might think we are so insignificant and about the harm we do to our surroundings thinking that we are so magnificent. Now we can see and know that we are a small part of what is out there connected to and from what is beyond our planet, Earth. Are we in decline, or can we overcome human ignorance? Either way, the views in these paintings even though views in time of long, long ago remind us that our own time is just a blip on a universal scale. I for one am a skeptic, witness to everyday human folly and yet, each day, I strive to overcome this skepticism. Beyond us are worlds unknowable, a seeming or real infinity which reminds us each of our responsibility to overcome our momentary issues and problems. Our momentary issues are nothing compared to the grandeur of the Universe; what is beyond in deepest space.
To my way of thinking the Universe is connected in a kind of scientific or, if you will allow, a certain spiritual connection, which is not meant at all to be corny, but rather personal and hard to talk about. Most of us ignore this. I do think that the past, present and future are intertwined and not separate. They exist simultaneously in the moment, and ever present (Well, that is a topic for more thoughts - another time).
So just what is it that I am trying to convey in these Astro-paintings? I like to think that I am acknowledging these beautiful deep sky objects, stars, galaxies and nebula and the unseen space, elements, compounds, gases and... all that dark dusty stuff. I also think about the unknown forces of dark energy and dark matter, in which a certain fuzziness I convey. This is the ambiguity in these art forms. Science and art are connected and they each influence their domain's at times predicting and confirming the known and what we wish to know. Ultimately, what a work of art reveals to you is the most important thing.