The streets, homes, cities and towns of our world can be seen from space; it is clear that a network of interdependent human habitats have evolved around the globe. Visual evidence of this network reaches us through satellite images that display our civilization from a distant point of view. In new paintings I choose to focus on the nighttime images of the Earth containing artificial lights from all facets of human construction. These lights present a dynamic in which humans gain an advantage over nature and simultaneously lose nature ’s gift.

Through technology, human societies around the globe are finding ways to replace or ignore the natural world. Cars, airplanes, television and, now, the internet all contribute to a gradual shrinking of the world and a parallel loss of our sense of time and space. These concerns inform my work along with the increasing interdependence of the world’s societies, referred to as globalization. The spiritual underpinning of globalization can be recognized from satellite images of the Earth at night. Our view of the universe is changing as well, due to astronomy’s advancements in space imaging. Tools such as the Hubble Telescope enable us to see the vast universe through detailed photographs.

Gradual erosion of the night sky above us has changed our collective unconscious, while the grand carnival of city lights has replaced our need for a night sky. Identifying symbols of night, such as the moon, stars, and darkness are disappearing and, concurrently, our identity in the Cosmos is changing.

My process involves investigating the meaning in different physical points of view. I consider viewing the Earth from space and seeing what appear to be strings of stars along a continent. I wonder at the spiritual effect of looking up, towards the night sky from a metropolitan area, as the visual composition plunges your eyes back to Earth’s lights. These paintings study our new relationship with starlight. Forbearers who have influenced this topic were the Italian Futurists and Kandinsky; along with Newman and Rothko’s American romantic sublime. Earthwork artists such as James Turrell and Robert Smithson deal with art theory in a large scale, mixing “cultural” and “natural” metaphors.

I am singularly focused on nighttime as the time during which we face our souls through dreams and face the void of the universe through darkness. With fewer stars in sight many of us who visit galleries are more familiar with terrestrial and in particular, cultural, avenues for spiritual insight. I believe this topic is readily accessible to all people, regardless of philosophical concerns or artistic education. Everyone lives in this world and takes part in the rapidly altering nature of stargazing.