When do you think your passion for the cosmos began?

 I feel my passion for the cosmos began a couple of years ago. At the time I was experimenting a lot with themes and ideas within nature and with maybe a little touching on scientific processes. I've always had an interest for the cosmos but it never really crossed my mind to incorporate it within my art practice. After reading into the cosmos a bit more in depth and discovering the processes and life cycles of our universe, it just stood out to me as the greatest story one could possibly tell. The life cycles of stars alone are fascinating. Even more so when you discover that everything around us and ourselves are made from the remnants of dead stars. I would say the fascination of wanting to tell this story along with the other great cycles of our universe whilst being scientifically accurate has been the main drive for a few years now and I don't see it ending anytime soon.

 

Is sending your images back to the ISM a conceptual idea with your work? Where do you think this is going to take you? 

The story behind the 'Reprocessed Stellar Medium' work is one of wanting to complete a cycle. Stemming from research into the ISM (Interstellar Medium) and the materials it consists of was really the staring point for the work. Also, at the time I had just completed a large body of work focusing on the Carbon's contribution to our planet, it's organisms and it's origins within stars. Stepping back from the work I realised that a sort of timeline was appearing through the work with a few gaps within it. Two of these gaps touch upon the same topic (the ISM) and fall between the death of stars and the future beyond our planet once our sun runs our of fuel and disperses into a planetary nebula. The Interstellar Medium it should be understood is the matter between stars. When stars die, they add their elements to the ISM which in turn will go on to form new stars, planets and possibly civilisations. Within the 'Reprocessed Stellar Medium' works, I'm sort of bringing forward the time when the elements which make up our us and our planet are returned to the ISM in about 5 billion years when our sun dies. So really what these digital drawings become is window to both the past and future of a section of the cosmos.

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I've seen work you have made in the past and I can't help but notice you have a fondness for hydro-carbons, what makes them so interesting to you?

Carbon overall is such a wonderful element, even when you don't think about diamonds. All known living organisms (Including you and I) are carbon-based lifeforms. That's mainly due to Carbon's ability to form bonds with other atoms, making it the ideal backbone if you like for organic molecules. Life (as we know it here on Earth) could not exist without Carbon. Now of course this is life as we know it here on Earth, a popular theory is that Silicon could be a possible base for life (given the right conditions) on other worlds. However, for the time being, we are the only planet with life we know of and its filled with Carbon - based lifeforms. So I find it interesting that the element crucial for our existence, is within a small piece of wood on my desk that I use to write and draw. With these ideas in mind, when I make work with carbon materials such as ink, graphite or charcoal, it can simultaneously connect audiences to themselves, the natural world around them and the origins of those carbon atoms being forged in the hearts of supergiant stars light years away and billions of years ago.