Essential Mysteries in Art and Science - E-book - ePub

Essential Mysteries, a series of 14 large circular paintings, were painted over 20 years from 1990 to 2010. Each treats a different aspect of science that prompted me to write well-researched essays about each. To obtain the most vivid, dynamic contrasts, I painted them on clear plexiglas with acrylic translucent paints. To obtain black, I painted with opaque black. To obtain define lines of white, I chiseled through the paint to the bare plastic with a rotary power tool, sometimes even chiseling into the plastic to create crystalline effects.
Much earlier, I had learned to love white lines when doing blockprints, and batik. My aesthetic is based on my crafts work, rather than the abstract expressionism that I was taught in painting in the 1950. Since 1970 I have created a narrative about science, from quarks to the cosmos, in my art. In 2018, I brought these together to publish the book Essential Mysteries in Art and Science. Each  well-researched essay in the book treats a different aspect of science, it includes new developments in science, chaos theory, and the study of emergent phenomena.