MARK LAWRENCE STAFFORD

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a painter, sculptor and independent researcher, excited to read about cosmology and quantum mechanics. So that is what I paint. I enjoy being charged with curiosity through the initial monochrome underpainting that exudes light into the surrounding networks of matter and energy, carving shapes that resonate thousands of light-years wide. Their occurrence translated in red shifted electromagnetic radiation, across space and time; whose wavelengths flatline upon our pupils between the moments of their observation and their rest in synthetic pigments— Only in language do they rise again, their persistence transfigured as comparisons to our own state of being. Reflections of possibilities entangled though fleeting. Under an assumed synchronous heartbeat, perhaps beneath our expanding environment; unseen. Many mentors converge in stating that. Reality is not what it seems. 

Yet my acrylics strive to represent these presently unknowable celestial objects by applying velaturas to compose their form-forward configurations. Positioning their outer-anatomic expressions in space inspired by data visualizations provided by space telescopes and other instruments that expose global collaboration of divergent perspectives that geodesically project an extension of our senses beyond biological limitations in acronyms like NASA, JWST, LiDAR, and more.

As our perspective begins to obscure, even physicists gleam philosophical versions of the cosmos and consciousness connection.  And while the layers of color are swirled, woven, exposed or subdued what becomes clear more than distance is our connection.