The Artist and The Cosmos
by Leah Lubin
I believe in artists influencing science as well as scientists influencing artists.
In my life, both my father and other people that I had important relationships with (All right, two ex-husbands!) were scientists. Growing up in England, as I did, the formal mind was highly regarded.
At one point, as a young artist of 23, I found myself living at The Weitzman Institute of Science in Israel. Living amongst some very big brains, I developed an interest in unseen energies. The way energy relates to mankind and the vast spaces in both time and distance between us the world, and the cosmos.
I expressed my feelings about energies that we could neither see nor photograph through my paintings, and lately through my writing.
Cosmological shapes, the circles and the ovals found over and over in the stars and the planets especially interested me. With the potential to leap from reality as we see it from the pictures and videos brought back to Earth by science and technology, I include the artist’s interpretation in my work.
I find openness in the idea of what would it be like if Mars or a part of Mars came down to Earth, instead of us always going to find them.
My paintings, "Mars On Earth" and "The Landing" are both abstractions of this point and how it would change the Earth’s structure, such as on the surface where the part of Mars had actually landed. Also, how would it change Mars itself, its shape and color?
My first painting on this subject was painted in 1974 and was called "Infinity and the Egg". A big move to the United States in 1979 brought me in contact with the Bay Area psychic community and resulted in the painting "Between Two Worlds", also the name of the book I am currently writing. Other paintings completed on this subject were sold, but photographic images of them remain on file. Then followed "Mars" in 1993, continuing with the paintings "Mars On Earth" and "The Landing" in 1995. The next work, "Mars At Night", was finished in 1996. I was extremely pleased to find that during that year (1996) scientists discovered evidence of life on Mars contained in a meteorite that landed in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago. Revealing within, were fossil remains of the primitive one-celled organisms with very basic shapes similar to the types that had held my fascination since the 1970’s. Artists intuition at work!
The summer of 1997 found me starting a new series of paintings on the Hale-Bopp comet, including "Hale-Bopp, No Space Ship Behind Me!" I am using my new voice (written words) to help understand and put together feelings of my work in a clearer fashion.
I want to add that I personally am dedicated to living on planet Earth. A rocket ship visiting Mars would find me waving goodbye to my boarding friends, with both feet firmly planted on the ground.