Alien Lanscapes Series: Artist's Statements

The Alien Landscapes Series is designed for viewers to look at each piece as if a space explorer were flying low over the surface of various exoplanets and taking snapshots of the most interesting geographical features found there to send back home.  

The titles reflect common names early explorers and scientists might bestow on each based on visual features and historic NASA naming traditions.  

For this series, I am inspired by the excitement of discovering new planets farther and farther into the universe by recent space missions. This is also my imaginative celebration of the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.  

Exoplateau, as the title hints, is a planet with a deeply ridged surface and soaring, weathered plateaus. But there is evidence of intelligent life as well. Are the makers of this petroglyph indigenous, or visitors from some other world? The imaginary space explorer would be very excited to report this discovery!

The Alien Landscapes Series is designed for viewers to look at each piece as if a space explorer were flying low over the surface of various exoplanets and taking snapshots of the most interesting geographical features found there to send back home.  

The titles reflect common names early explorers and scientists might bestow on each based on visual features and historic NASA naming traditions.  

For this series, I am inspired by the excitement of discovering new planets farther and farther into the universe by recent space missions. This is also my imaginative celebration of the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.  

The Color Wheel was created around the idea of a hot planet somewhere covered with a churning sea of molten minerals. I imagined a deep thermal activity boiling up pools of different minerals, tenuously separated by thin walls of somewhat hardened material. I thought my imaginary space explorer would have found it striking enough to send a survey photo back home.