100 Famous Views of the Universe
I work with developmentally disabled adults during the day. I find my job hectic and emotionally intense, so when I go to my studio I often want to see something very quiet, something that gives me a doorway into a contemplative state of mind. These paintings are about gazing off into deep space. They are inspired by the amazing photos coming from the Hubble Telescope. Many of them are color fields because I imagine that many places one can look in the deep sky would have only star dust, emptiness and dark matter.
The paintings are designed to be viewed as a group, but I find I like looking at them one at a time, also. It's fun to move them around into different configurations and I hope one day to have a show in which people can do just that--experiment with different placements. Moving them around changes how they feel quite a bit
The title of the group comes from a woodcut print series by the Japanese master Hiroshige called 100 famous views of Edo which were sold as travel souvenirs in the mid 1800's. My little paintings are like souvenirs of where my mind goes in meditation. There aren't really 100 of them yet, but then, it took Hiroshige several years before he completed the full set, also