The night skies of the dark sky community where I live--the desert town of Borrego Springs, CA--and an interest in astronomy combined to inspire these paintings of deep space objects. Two factors determine my choice of subject: the sheer beauty of the image, and whether I imagine that I can sense a certain numinosity or presence in it. As I paint, I think about the star birth that occurs so far away, and about the life that may be evolving there too, for all we know. Light from these galaxies and nebulae travels so long and far to reach us that to look at them is a form of traveling back into time—we see these objects not as they are, but as they were when their light began its journey here. Our new ability to use astronomical photography to record these images in such detail, and to make them available to so many people, strikes me as one of the major intellectual events of our time. A vast and infinitely complex universe surrounds our planet and its daily conflicts and concerns. I marvel that I live in an era when so much beauty, mystery and thought-provoking perspective on the human condition are so readily accessible.
Jodie Forrest is an artist and astrologer living and working in Borrego Springs, CA.