In Our Sights
Dante Raso
Major: Astronomy & Astrophysics; Painting and Drawing BFA
Genre/Medium: Surreal / Oil on Canvas / paintbrushes
About the work: ”In Our Sight” is a surreal oil painting that conveys the human connection to the cosmos, our innate curiosity about it and our own origins, and now, thanks to the Psyche mission, our ability to feed some of that curiosity. This piece is a juxtaposition of the micro (the human iris with its intricate structure) against the macro, (the image of Psyche against the background of the cosmos) as well as a comparison between the beauty that is found both in human biology and outer space. The original concept was much more complex, involving a depiction of the data visualization that would be constructed after the craft completed its orbits and surveys, and more surreal elements involving craft machinery / instrumentation and equations relating to the mission. I opted for something more simple and striking after doing a few sketches.