Sarah Thornton- Nature As She Is: Exploring Cosmology Through Touch 2017

Artist: Sarah Thornton

Nature As She Is: Exploring Cosmology Through Touch 2017

 

From Top to Bottom: In The Beginning, A Vault Between The Waters, Signs To Mark Sacred Times, As It Was Written

 

As part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy’s 2017 Artist in Residence program, the artist worked with Dr. Andrew Zentner regarding his research in astrophysics + cosmology.


The chronological series offers four miniature portraits of the universe during its known and projected life cycle— conception, birth, present state, and predicted fade. In The Beginning + As It Was Written are linked by a monochromatic field augmented by texture and finish. These paintings use unconventional techniques, as the beginning and end of the universe exists un-intuitively. A Vault Between The Waters + Signs To Mark Sacred Times sit more comfortably in the highly pigmented and intuitive realm of visible light, using color, light, and dark to show a synthesis of motion, energy, and mass. The handbuilt color, light, and texture presents a physical interpretation of the life cycle narrative. Applying paint by hand allows the artist to connect with the physically with the subject, and translate the quantitative into qualitative using the body as a conductive medium.