My paintings explore a metaphorical night landscape, referencing the dichotomy between science’s attempt to categorize the unknown versus man’s direct observation and subjective insight of what might be called “the sublime”. Searching the night sky, modern telescopic instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope allow us an astonishing, intimate view into the universe that Galileo and Kepler can only have dreamt of, yet the irreducible beauty as seen by the naked eye provides us with abundant fuel for artistic discourse. We exist in a world defined by light and rounded by dark, but above all defined by imagination.
Archetypal images of the known (seascape and cityscape) are contrasted with those of the unknown (night sky and universe). Various celestial objects, maps, grids and identifiers commonly used in astronomy, cartography and pictography are added to the paintings to form a cognitive map of the sublime. The blacks and blues of the deep night skies exist alongside the lighter tones of evening skies in a landscape which aims to address the dual play of the real and the imagined. Intuition and logic are not necessarily antithetical, and their melding can offer a limitless place from which to dream.
Susan Holcomb
July, 2010
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