Painting the Universe
An astrophysicist takes up an artist’s brush to meditate on God’s wondrous works.
These two art pieces were my first attempts to develop a new hobby—painting the universe—during the tight lockdown due to COVID-19. They were the efforts taken to move my sight from the walls surrounding me to the vast and beautiful universe we live in. They were also my desperate prayers, seeking to focus on God's work and words throughout challenging times.
The idea to do painting as a way of meditating grew from the kind acts of a dear church family member in Hong Kong. She gracefully made her home a welcoming place and taught me to paint for a whole afternoon during one past emergency trip back home. It was, and is always, sweet to count on God's grace and ponder the wonder of his work. And thankfulness multiplies through sharing.
When I did the paintings, I did not know that they would one day serve a broader purpose as artwork in Imprint. What an unpredicted path, and how reverently wonderful, are God's master plans! I hope you will enjoy the paintings.
I painted the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth (~650 lightyears away from us), based on an astronomical image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys and the four-metre telescope's mosaic camera at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
This glowing gas cloud expands around a sun-like star during its final years, as the star runs out of fuel for fusion and sloughs off its outer layers. It appears to us like an eye (due to the viewing angle); thus, the Helix got its nickname “Eye of God.” Interested readers may find some interesting facts and a more detailed scientific description of the Helix by searching the NASA website.
I painted a part of the Milky Way galaxy with a reference image from the public domain. Parts of the galactic disc are obscured by dust.
In both paintings, the stars (i.e., white dots in the pictures) were randomly sprinkled onto the canvases. The "star-making" process was super fun and soothing.
During my painting process, Psalm 8 appeared in my mind, with verses three and four repeatedly ringing in my heart:
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
我觀看你指頭所造的天 ，
並你所陳設的月亮星宿 ，
便說：人算甚麼 ，你竟顧念他？
世人算甚麼，你竟眷顧他？
It was a unique experience meditating on God's words during the painting process, letting God's words landscape my thoughts. It was also a new exploration to view the universe through an artist's lens instead of the lens of physics that I often apply at work as an astrophysicist. On one hand, adding different layers of colours and sub-structures to various shapes within the pictures triggered thinking about some details of the Helix that I had never noticed before. On the other hand, the same process also slowed down my anxious heart, as appreciation grew and as thankfulness displaced worries. We are wonderfully made and deeply loved. For these, praise be to God.
Text & Art: Jennifer Chan