Fire and Copper

These copper panels are made using the heat of two torches burning simultaneously to force the oxidation of the metal surface. I collect deep space images, the photos we get from Hubble and the various probes sent off to the nether reaches. The images of nebulae, molecular clouds, colliding galaxies, furiously spinning quasars unleashing tsunamis of radiation across the vastness of time are in many ways the culmination of man's vision. What we once saw as a sparkly dot of white light we can now resolve into the brilliance and magnitude that these photographs capture.

These panels are my channeling of this stuff onto metal. Painting with superheated gases seems appropriate; there are no pigments, just the roasted chemistry of the oxides themselves. As the stainless I use for my other work is the least reactive, most stable material I can get my hands on, copper is a highly reactive material. I love their dug-up-out-of-the-ground vibe and their map-of-the-incomprehensible-forces feel. These are the other side of the sword of my aesthetics.