SarahFirmin

SARAH FIRMIN

I have been currently involved in “Arts/Science Encounters” a three month event at Sheffield University. A series of talks and performance have brought together researchers from across the University’s five faculties for the first time, from Chemistry, Design, Literature and Law, Music, Neuroscience and Physics in a series of provocative encounters.

My involvement has been with the one around CERN ,and the Large Hadron Collider which exists in a circular tunnel 27 kilometres below ground between the Swiss and French borders, colliding subatomic particles at a rate near the speed of light.

Over the past year and a half I have been producing a series of paintings to do with the cosmos and my personalised experience of it translated into visual imagery by using a wide variety of techniques – drawing / pinhole camera /digital/ collage and painting.

It is a great eye opener to have the opportunity to move over from the confines of art to that of science. As the work developed I began to realise that within ourselves and our earthly environment, we undergo the same energetic processes as the cosmic environment itself and that this happens around us daily on a miniscule and on a gargantuan scale. Consequently I am following the CERN project with a deep interest intermingling my imagination with scientific “facts”.

I also began to learn how scientists have and use their own leaps of imagination sometimes very much as artists do.

"All paintings were shown with descriptive stories as part of my engagement with the event."

Big Bang acrylic/ digital imaging top right Black Hole Emerging bottom Black Hole disappearing Acrylic/oil/pastel

top Asteroid belt / digital collage Material from original print/oil Bottom The lightness of Dark Energy Acrylic/metallic/ egg.

"Full of Emptiness" acrylic/egg tempera/ pastel.