DEEP SPACE MYSTERIES IN CENTAR
“the sublime is experienced in the presence of natural forces such as the broad ocean agitated by storms, shapeless mountain masses, the Milky Way and the immeasurable host of such systems known as nebulae.”
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment.
As early as my memory goes I have raised my eyes to the stars and wonder about the mysteries of creation. The sensations and memories from my childhood influenced me to further inquiries pondering the reasons for human existence. Until now, my artwork is motivated by constant awe towards the magnificent creation that surrounds us; its constant swiveling, the turbulence of colors, the never-ending motion and commotion of the stars and galaxies. Steering forces in my endeavor to depict the brightness of the galactic elements contrast to the mysterious darkness of Deep Space. To substantiate I decided to use a unique material that could link the dissimilar realms; tar, this ancient reminder of life on the planet, became my primary material in transposing galactic images to canvas. Its profound darkness stands opposed to the ever glowing brightness of suns and quasars; that results in a dialectic of ‘sky-scraping’ and ‘deep-rooting’. In other words, the material extracted from the abyss to render the celestial. From thereon my painterly language emerged.
The photos sent to earth by the Hubble telescope mediate images that fecundate my imagination. At the same time, a wide audience was exposed to the Deep Space experience. The Hubble deep space images illustrate the stars, galaxies, supernovas, white dwarfs, quasars and many other colorful hypnotic phenomena. Those images commemorate events that took place billions of years back, in accuracy that allows the description of the universe’s ancient state, and visualization of the intriguing character of light. In my concept, the presence and absence of light are contingent and contain the core essence of my artistic endeavor. Metamorphosing, the phenomenon of light into colors generates a differentiated view for the observer, allude to light as the first coat of energy and at the same time evokes the work process of my ‘action’ painting.
In recent decades far-reaching discoveries occurred in the area of atom research. It became evident that the atom itself is an energetic essence subordinated in its definition by time and space. Electrons are singular points of energy that circulate a center changing from atom to atom by their inherent mass and volume. That center, the nucleus, once more, opens for further dissolution into subatomic particles. New sub-particles are discovered depending on the amount of energy that is exercised upon them. In the realm of galaxies, new events gather where the current stand of science is still searching for definite answers. Every stellar system has its center, as, for example, our sun. This stellar system rotates around the center of the galaxy; all the galaxies rotate the amorphic mysterious area, considered to be the center of the universe. In 1964 the cosmic background radiation was discovered. These findings became the most evident proof for the ‘big bang’, believed to be causal to the creation of the universe. In later findings the age of the universe was stipulated as fourteen billion years.
This thesis generated an aperture for new and fascinating questions regarding the creation of the universe; and thus new discourses evolved in the meta-area of astronomy, philosophy and theology. In this case, if such strong scientific evidence is announced regarding the birth of the universe, then the question arises — what was there before? Or is it the sole existing universe? Maybe there is an infinite number of universes that were created at different times? And they, like the galaxies, rotate around the same mysterious center where everything began? If the atom contains a nucleus and all matter is constructed from atoms, consequently all human beings have a center, just as the moon swivels the planet earth, that surrounds the sun, and the solar system surrounds the center of the ‘Milky Way Galaxy’, that in turn circumscribe the navel of the universe.
In this description the creator is the center of all centers that for me became the Centar; a synthesis of center and tar and thus the core essence that by its definition creates and is defined by its creation. It might be that this ‘center of centers’ is a black hole where the laws of physics, as we know them, do not apply. Until today no satisfactory explanation has been found for this mind-boggling question. The alleged black hole attracts all matter in the universe in a process that could last another forty billion years and would absorb all the matter of the universe, and then another big bang could occur…..and so forth. From here on the course of creation would be a spiral of Thanatos, convergence, and birth again, absorption and emission, compounds and separation back to the elementary particles for the creation in the magnificent process beyond our perception of a new universe.
In my work, spirals and circles symbolize the continuity of constant movement and eternity, just as stars are continually in endless transformations from birth, expansion, growth and finally transferring into forms of other dimensions, like humans that are not dying but simply leave their physical bodies and continue another energetic form of existence. In broad movements on big canvases, I tried to capture this continuity and motion; my realm holds no space for a galactic ‘still life’.
From long years of research and contemplation of this fascinating subject, I learned that when I feel blue, what heightens my spirit is a renewed search for the brightest star in the dark night. There is nothing like star-watching to diminish daily distress. Just as a thought, to set proportion right, if the universe exists fourteen billion years, then the human life span is like the size of a tennis ball compared to the size of our planet. The way to encounter any sense to such disproportion, most likely, is by multiplying the smallness of the individual human being by the billions of humans that lived on this planet, or by dwelling into the idea of infinity.
Since the idea of the infinite, can not exist in confinement but grows in thoughts unbound by planetary laws. Therefore, for me to generate creative vitality, such ideas, are, in a way, similar to a rebirth invigorating a new start, fresh energies and thus to rejoin the self. Such a liberating sensation can be found after having lost oneself in starry nights.
In the series of ‘Deep Space’ works, I attempted to transpose those sensations into color and form. With tar, I appropriate a unique media that conveys a synthesis to the external world of science and the sensations of my inner awe. I conceived those works in my private language, striving to express the link between past and future, brightness and darkness, human being and the universe; by what I named as being ‘Centar’, it entails in tar the reminder of ancient life on our planet, and grounds the deferral of images from deep space to exposure on canvas; the closure of the circuit, the metamorphosis of material on its journey from abyss to the celestial, unfolding the ancient light into live art, colorful photo images into magic with the dream that one day my art would be universally appreciated.
have magic
Ted Barr
