1. Stardust

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson

We talk about the cycle of life on Earth, but it exists in the heavens as well. Stars are born, live out their existence, and then some explode when the hot Iron core of supermassive stars finally is unable to withstand the gravitational pressure and causes the star to explode and die. When they die, their outer part is driven into space, they scatter into the Universe the elements needed for planet formation and, eventually, for life to arise. 

Death of a star leads to the birth of life somewhere far away in the galaxy. As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, we are "star stuff..."  

I chose the Crab Nebula as my background, that is all the "star stuff" that remains of a tremendous stellar explosion.  The Crab Nebula has been an important part of own human history, dating back to early Chinese and Arab astronomers as early as 1054. It is such a massive explosion that the  energy radiated out in this explosion is more than the total energy emitted by our star, the Sun during its entire life time. A Supernova explosion in a galaxy is brighter than the rest of the entire galaxy! In 1054, this celestial event was so bright that it was seen in the day time. It was easily the brightest object in the sky, besides the Sun and Moon, for several  months.

Birth and Death don't they look like the two faces of the same coin? 

The death of a star leads to the birth of complex life form. Isn't this amazing? Earth, life on earth, we humans all are made up of supernova explosions such as the Crab Nebula. 

As humans, we are part of this phenomenon called "Life". Our existence  depends entirely upon our ability to reproduce ourselves, to procreate. Hence the composition of my painting; a sexual intercourse between a female and a male, both remnants of stardust acting on top of the Crab Nebula... 

This painting will be part of my exhibition on art + science "Two Cultures?".

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. – Carl Sagan 

2. "A Star is Born"

In 1995, the Hubble telescope captured a spectacular image of the Eagle Nebula. Dubbed the 'Pillars of Creation', scientists believe these images to show the birth of new stars; interstellar hydrogen gas and dust are incubators for new stars. 

This painting will be part of my upcoming exhibition on art + science "Two Cultures?".

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. – Carl Sagan 

"Stardust" (2013) © Yves Messer

Carl Sagan and his wife told their daughter:

"'You are alive right this second. That is an amazing thing,' they told me. When you consider the nearly infinite number of forks in the road that lead to any single person being born, they said, you must be grateful that you’re you at this very second. Think of the enormous number of potential alternate universes where, for example, your great-great-grandparents never meet and you never come to be. Moreover, you have the pleasure of living on a planet where you have evolved to breathe the air, drink the water, and love the warmth of the closest star. You’re connected to the generations through DNA — and, even farther back, to the universe, because every cell in your body was cooked in the hearts of stars. We are star stuff, my dad famously said, and he made me feel that way."

3. "Pillars of Creation"

"Stardust" (150 x 150 cm - 2013) 

I started it in 2010 - but was unhappy with it. See my post then. 
Still using Hubble Space Telescope's photo "Pillars of Creation" the center of the Eagle nebula. The tower of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers high, depicting a large region of star formation. The view is a 360 degrees panorama, giving a sense of alleged "positive curvature" of our Universe.

This painting will be part of my upcoming exhibition on art + science "Two Cultures?".

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. – Carl Sagan 

Homage to Vincent Van Gogh

Exactly 120 years ago, in July 27, 1890, Vincent Van Gogh walked out into the fields around Auvers-sur-Oise and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died two days later.

Yet, by all our criteria of "success", Van Gogh was a failure.

Before deciding to become an artist, he had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, as an art salesman, and a preacher in Belgium. In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery and to study Art. He encountered the Impressionists and began to lighten his very dark palette.

He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art with Gauguin. A violent row started between the two which led to total disaster. After the row, Van Gogh ended up cutting a portion of his own ear lobe off, wrapped it in newspaper, and gave it to a prostitute named Rachel. In May of 1890, he was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment where he met with Dr Gachet and where he painted "The Starry Night," one of his most famous paintings.

Some two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all."  He felt a burden to his brother’s family, and a failed artist.

The Red Vineyard

Van Gogh's finest works were produced during his three last years. He produced over 2,000 works and sold only one during his life: The Red Vineyard.

Although today, these paintings can fetch tens of millions of $ at auction and enrich many collectors, they were worthless during his lifetime. Nobody bought them. One day, he even begged for meat to his butcher against one of his paintings. The butcher refused his offer. 

History is cruel. His Doctor Gachet portrait was sold in auction for $82.5 million, an auction record. A Japanese industrialist multimillionaire Ryoei Saito bought it and took it to Tokyo, where he left it unseen by anyone for seven years. He joked about his wish to get the famous painting cremated with him. Since he died in 1995, nobody really knows who is the new owner of Dr. Gachet portrait or its location.

I have painted a portrait of Dr. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it. . . . Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done. . . . There are modern heads that may be looked at for a long time, and that may perhaps be looked back on with longing a hundred years later.

VINCENT VAN GOGH, JUNE 1890

The best way to learn from a master like Van Gogh is to copy him. So did I and as homage, I chose for my painting’s quiet backdrop his Noon, or The Siesta, (after Millet, 1890). 

I used real gold paint instead of his so-called “Van Gogh’s yellows” to paint hays.

I believe had he the opportunity, he would have used it as he was a fond admirer of Asiatic and Japanese art.

Depending on the gold’s reflections and your angle's viewpoint, you will see Vincent’s dying and (logically)  colorless body to appear or disappear... 

I also found his brush technique very energetic yet easier and more natural than I thought (no wonder he painted so many pictures!). He clearly loved hays as it is natural for his brush strokes technique.

I also understood that when he was painting colors, they were not just “vibrating” but also very "material". Van Gogh was treating light and colours as he would have treated concrete matter, and vice-versa. In Van Gogh’s mind light was BOTH a wave (vibration) and a particle (matter). It was a sort of artist’s take on the “wave-particle” famous scientific paradox.

Epitaph:

The true artist is living on the edge of life, like walking a tightrope with no net.

He is admired for his incredible aerial feats, his freedom yet his admirers hope he will fall, he will fail. This is their thrill. This is why he is tapped on the back in hope one day he will.

Van Gogh fell but didn't fail.

My "Pillars of Creation"

 I am not a landscape painter but since the releases of the Hubble Space Telescope’s pictures, galaxies and other nebulae have become part of our landscape. The central subject of my painting is the "Pillars of Creation", located in The Eagle Nebula (M16, NGC 6611). Released in April 1995, they are Hubble Space Telescope’s most famous picture. The M16 is approximately 7,000 light years away and is approximately 24 trillion miles long.

My painting is a 360 degrees panorama which has therefore no fixed central viewpoint. It is however viewed from one single observer living on our planet Earth.

I have therefore painted it from all possible angles, turning the canvas on all its four possible positions (therefore these four views of my painting). This painting can be appreciated from any angle, hopefully superseding the limited "Cubist perspective" attempted a century ago.

As a so-called "fish-eye" panorama, its positive curvature reflects the curvature of our expanding (inflationary) universe.

The "Pillars" patterns can also be found amongst the clouds above the sun (sorry but my photograph isn't good enough to see them well). These are "Pillars-like clouds" BUT with quite literally a twist: they are inverted as in a mirror. My idea here is to suggest the idea of a relation between what Ancient philosophers called Macrocosm&Microcosm. In Ancient Egypt, our "Milky Way" was considered as a celestial copy of the "earthly Nile", a place where all dead's souls end their journey. 

I liked this metaphor: we are but a reflection of a much bigger world. We are mere stardust.

Viewed at some distance, the circle of the panorama can also be seen as either an outside or inside "sphere"- my artistic rendering of the concept of a "boundless yet finite" Universe.

I hope that at this point you feel a little bit dizzy... 

The circle of the panorama can also be seen as a clock. If you look a little bit closer you will realize it is being populated by Life's activities over a span of... several millions years. The central subject being, after all, the "Pillars of Creation". We are all ephemeral stardust, are we not?

So it is all about time + space ... in a nutshell.

The irony is that this image of these "Pillars of Creation" isn't eternal either. In 2007 an infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed a previously unknown supernova whose shock wave may have destroyed the Pillars approximately 6,000 years ago. 

Given the distance to the nebula, we have another 1,000 years to enjoy this striking beauty.

Since I won't live long enough, I thought it would be a good idea to portray it.

This painting of Vincent Van Gogh (The Starry Night) was an obvious inspiration.

My "Pillars of Creation"

 I am not a landscape painter but since the releases of the Hubble Space Telescope’s pictures, galaxies and other nebulae have become part of our landscape. The central subject of my painting is the "Pillars of Creation", located in The Eagle Nebula (M16, NGC 6611). Released in April 1995, they are Hubble Space Telescope’s most famous picture. The M16 is approximately 7,000 light years away and is approximately 24 trillion miles long.

My painting is a 360 degrees panorama which has therefore no fixed central viewpoint. It is however viewed from one single observer living on our planet Earth.

I have therefore painted it from all possible angles, turning the canvas on all its four possible positions (therefore these four views of my painting). This painting can be appreciated from any angle, hopefully superseding the limited "Cubist perspective" attempted a century ago.

As a so-called "fish-eye" panorama, its positive curvature reflects the curvature of our expanding (inflationary) universe.

The "Pillars" patterns can also be found amongst the clouds above the sun (sorry but my photograph isn't good enough to see them well). These are "Pillars-like clouds" BUT with quite literally a twist: they are inverted as in a mirror. My idea here is to suggest the idea of a relation between what Ancient philosophers called Macrocosm&Microcosm. In Ancient Egypt, our "Milky Way" was considered as a celestial copy of the "earthly Nile", a place where all dead's souls end their journey. 

I liked this metaphor: we are but a reflection of a much bigger world. We are mere stardust.

Viewed at some distance, the circle of the panorama can also be seen as either an outside or inside "sphere"- my artistic rendering of the concept of a "boundless yet finite" Universe.

I hope that at this point you feel a little bit dizzy... 

The circle of the panorama can also be seen as a clock. If you look a little bit closer you will realize it is being populated by Life's activities over a span of... several millions years. The central subject being, after all, the "Pillars of Creation". We are all ephemeral stardust, are we not?

So it is all about time + space ... in a nutshell.

The irony is that this image of these "Pillars of Creation" isn't eternal either. In 2007 an infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed a previously unknown supernova whose shock wave may have destroyed the Pillars approximately 6,000 years ago. 

Given the distance to the nebula, we have another 1,000 years to enjoy this striking beauty.

Since I won't live long enough, I thought it would be a good idea to portray it.

This painting of Vincent Van Gogh (The Starry Night) was an obvious inspiration.

See my final version (2013).

Disability and Art

This portrait is of someone whose body is seriously disabled (she is an ALS/MND sufferer). My idea was to be honest about her disability, which for me meant showing her body as it is, without hiding anything yet  in a tactful and respectful manner. So, my solution was inspired by Velásquez's or Rubens' "Venus": a naked "Venus", symbol of femininity BUT showing only her back while... she is watching US via her mirror! So, when visitors (mostly male in those days) were expecting to peep at an attractive naked female body, in fact the situation was reversed: watchers they weren't anymore, they were the watched ones! This painting was very feminist indeed. 

In my painting, because of her handicap, it was decided that the mirror would be locally cracked, hinting at her disabled body.

In Velásquez times (mid 17th century) this painting was so provocative that it managed to escape the Spanish Inquisition only because it remained hidden in a private collection.

Ironically it didn't survive well the 20th century when in 1914, the militant suffragette and feminist Mary Richardson slashed Velásquez's masterpiece in protest of women's situation (see photograph).

This composition seems to unsettle many. The subject of my portrait has refused to "endorse" it. It will  therefore remain anonymous.

More on Velásquez's "Venus" popularity.

EXCLUSIVE: Mother With ALS Paints Again Using Eye-controlled Device

Showing disability in an "artistic" manner seems to create controversy.

Disabled artist Alison Lapper did create controversy when a statue of her naked body (born with short legs and no arms) was erected at Trafalgar Square in... 2005. 

The "Other Portrait" of Professor Stephen Hawking

(click on this picture for zooming and more information)

My portrait had the ambition to not only convey Professor Hawking's sense of determination in life ("against the odds") but also to include some of his scientific ideas (see full picture below). That his greatness has also to do with his intellectual struggle with his life-time scientific research (in brief: the "Theory of Everything"). Plus, his sense of humour and irony which you discover when reading his books (hence his smile in my portrait among other "subtilities"....) A portrait that would convey inspiration and respect, not "distracted" by his physical handicap (MND/ALS) as it is so often the case.

It is also part of my project to build a bridge between the worlds of arts and sciences. To try provide an answer to C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" essay. In Professor Hawking's case, it involved me attempting to grasp Bohr's and Feynman's quantum mechanics or Einstein's general relativity concepts and "translate" them visually.

It 'll be a long and lonely road, I am afraid.

This portrait of Professor Stephen Hawking unveiled last November at the Royal Society in London, was commissioned to artist Tai-Shan Schierenberg soon after I was in contact and met with Professor Hawking- spending an afternoon in his office to start his portrait.

Tai-Shan has done a powerful rendering of Hawking's portrait, giving a sense of struggle and determination.

Hawking portrait unveiled at the Royal Society

Some other portraits of Professor Stephen Hawking:

To laugh or to cry? That is my question...

The "twin masks of comedy and tragedy" are used to represent the creative arts, particularly theater. Shakespeare was the master in handling both masks. These concepts were born in ancient Greece more than 2,500 years ago. Their endurance across the centuries reflects the power of drama and the twin themes of joy and despair which bracket the human condition.
Though they can appear separately and indeed evolved as representations of different dramatic art forms, their appearance together holds far more symbolic importance.

(Comic mask with tragic mask in background, Roman, 2nd century CE London, British Museum. )

On that theme, I did two years ago this portrait of 'Funmi Adewole, an artist, a dancer, a poet and friend of mine. The idea was to convey 'Funmi's different facets or her personality, sometimes sad, sometimes happy. The two facets are in a sort of "emotional perspective". I submitted it then to the annual National Portrait Gallery (NPG ) "BP award". It was not even short-listed by the jury.
Should I cry or should I laugh? ;-)



This is a portrait of myself and my daughter. I believe that both expressions, apparently "opposite" (sad and happy) in fact complement each other, just like so-called "opposite colours" (eg red and green. blue and orange, yellow and purple...) complement each other.
Should we cry or should we laugh? ;-)




On that same old theme: Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 B.C.) and Heraclitus (c. 540 - c. 475 B.C.) are known as the 'laughing and crying philosophers.' Fresco transferred to canvas (Bramante 1477)
Should they cry or should they laugh? ;-)



This is Leonardo da Vinci s Joconda with her mysterious smile: happiness or sadness?
My answer: it is BOTH happiness AND sadness. ;)

My portrait of Prof. Stephen Hawking

It is not my habit to comment my paintings. They should "speak" for themselves. I will however give here some clues: "Big Ben" represents our "newtonian" (classical) time but if you look closely its time is... wrong! It is affected by the nearby galaxy's black hole (Einstein's "General relativity"). The "Event horizon" here is replacing our classical traditional "horizon."
The galaxy's black hole cannot be visible but if you look at the real painting, the canvas is locally dented as would our space-time when considered as a four-dimensional "brane".

"All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist. "

— Stephen W. Hawking

From website for PBS program, Stephen Hawking's Universe (1997).

My portrait of Prof. Stephen Hawking

It is not my habit to comment on my paintings. They should "speak" for themselves. I will however give here some clues: "Big Ben" represents our "newtonian" (classical) time but if you look closely its time is... wrong! It is affected by the nearby galaxy's black hole (Einstein's "General relativity"). The "Event horizon" here is replacing our classical traditional "horizon."
The galaxy's black hole cannot be visible but if you look at the real painting, the canvas is locally dented as would our space-time when considered as a four-dimensional "brane".

"All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist. "

— Stephen W. Hawking

From website for PBS program, Stephen Hawking's Universe (1997).

My research project: The Eye Inside

The Eye Inside