Art can be more than just a pleasant sensory experience, it can be a vehicle for exploring deeper concepts grounded in difficult material to encapsulate. This painting is inspired from researches into the cislunar environment, that to the naked eye appears to be an empty void. To date, depictions of this void has been schematic. Watching historical footage of the Mercury through Apollo depicted the space around the Earth, and the journey to the Moon in terms of what technical experts needed to perform their roles.

https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/348/apollo-mission-flight-plan-1967/?category=images

As this 1967 flight plan image illustrates the schematic nature of the flight. what is shown is the relative size of each body, the trans lunar voyage, the retro burns to achieve lunar orbit by the spacecraft, but what is not depicted is the vast distance in-between that the spacecraft and its crew passed through.

I created a painting depicting the distance in relative scale of the lunar diameters, the relative void separating these two bodies, and also how the space in between is not in fact empty at all but filled with energetic particles from out Sun, Cosmic Rays and ionizing particles that make this visibly empty space a dangerous place. The idea of this painting and the accompanying poem are an attempt to impress upon the viewer that risks, the shear scale of the trip, the perils that exist, and the fact that humanity is capable of surmounting the difficulties and go to the Moon.

This feeling of awe and sobering thought about any lunar endevour and the at the techinical challenges is very important for several reasons. In preparing to create this work, a review of data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, original Apollo preparation research from Ranger and Luna probes researching for this painting does a lot to explain results of experiments, and create data products, but does not hint at the spirit of the investigation.

It is the spirit of the enterprise that guides the endevour, and the data products inform decisions that push the project forward to meet its goals. By creating a sense of the gravity for the enterprise, of the risks and rewards, through a piece of art allows for private contemplation and public discussion about the data products that inspired the piece

To create this feeling several techniques are used. Inverting the colour palette; white for space and black for stars anrcald other features, is remenisent of glass plate astronomical photographs that show the stars as black due to the siliver nitrate reaction to the visible light from stars. Using white also allows for creating shadows and contrasts of the textures built up underneath the "void" to hint at the underlying structures of the space itself that is generally unseen.

Creating a texture to indicate that the space is not in fact empty, but textured with features to show aspects of the invisible forces that fill the space.

The poem that fills the empty space between the cislunar expanse between the Earth and the Moon invites the view to move closer to the piece, and force the perspective of the viewer to see the painting as a vaster space than its working size. The poem font is intentionally small, to make it difficult to read, to force the reader to struggle, which is what is a fundamental part of achieving greatness. The poem is in two parts, creating an opportunity for the viewer on completion of reading the first half, to look out across the space between themselves and the object of the enterprise; going to the moon, and see the distance that needs to be crossed

As the view moves along the image of the second of the three pieces, an appreciation of the distance is invoked to the second half of the poem. Reading the second half of the poem again brings the view very close to the piece, and a chance to see the Moon from a perspective of approaching the object of the endevour. It also hints at looking back to the start of the adventure and seeing the Earth from the position of being very far away from it.

Both the Earth Canvas and the Moon canvas are canted at an angle to actually see the images from the forced perspectives of the poem positions.

Expressing this ratio of Earth to Moon to earth allows the painting to scale the distance between the two bodies in reference to the destination instead of the target

Using a painting as the expression of the results of scientific investigation and creating the sense of awe is subtle. There are many methods of creating this sense, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, movies and games, but a painting is active and passive at the same time. The message of the piece is not dwarfed by the technology used to invoke the message, it waits to be interacted with in its setting and it is unmitigated by technology so it can exist as an experience independent of any technology, as long as it can be seen, so in this way it is passive. But the artist who can cast elements through the painting technology creates an active experience by forcing perspective, and creating an experiential narrative and turning the view from a passive observer to an active observing participant in the piece.