Theoretically, it is possible to survive in the cold, black,
vacuum of space for up to a minute. The delicately balanced
bladder of atmosphere that circles the Earth is so tenuous. Without atmospheric
pressure, the boiling point of liquids
drops. Without the weight of all that moist gas bearing down on us we would come "unglued," our
body fluids would start to
boil; the molecules, needing less energy to break free of their liquid state,
would begin jumping ship. Of course, in space,
the escaping vapor would then begin to freeze on any part of you that wasn't
in direct contact with the sun's rays.
But, for up to a minute, survival is possible and your eyes would not pop out
of your head nor would your heart explode.
Extreme environments that define the limits of our adaptive abilities also show
us just how narrowly focused and precarious,
living organisms are. The limits of our physical nature sets the parameters for
the physical world we contemplate. Natural laws form the basis of painting; whether
one is adhering to their logical relationships or poking fun at them with
incongruous juxtapositions, the physical world has everything to do with picture
making. My understanding of how forms
behave in space allows me to create my abstractions and play with their positioning
from multitudinous perspectives. This
interplay is engaging to me precisely because of my "hard-wired" cognition of
the physical properties of weight, surface
tension, solid, sharp, falling etc. These conditions are the manifestations of
the properties and laws of the material
world we all inhabit. By reproducing them in a painting, I am contemplating the
laws of the material world.