Galileo’s Doorway

While the Italian Futurists were busy reconstructing the universe during the early 20th century, this same time period saw the end of Post Impressionism that left us with cultural icons such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The Futurists embraced speed, noise, machines and the modern city that brought technology and a new world into our lives. The dynamic movement and colour in their paintings introduced a graffiti design into art that I wanted to incorporate into my series Galileo’s Doorways. Using astrological motifs and themes, as the central throughline, this work evokes a surrealistic atmosphere of fractured images and dissolving forms. Drawing upon influences and connections from cosmology, sci-fi pop-culture, and retro arcade games, Galileo’s Doorway is a series of abstract paintings that play with textured surfaces and the light reflection of an arcade. 

“Galileo meets pinball” is a tagline I wrote to accompany the exhibition. This line came to mind while I was in the process of researching and constructing the imagery, which allowed me to reflect on my childhood experiences in the arcade more than I realized.  My fascination with abstracting parts from pinball machines and 80’s retro arcade machines went beyond the two dimensional paintings. I collaborated with a CNC cabinet maker, a graffiti artist, and a computer technician to fabricate and build three dimensional arcade machines as part of the show to give the audience a more immersive experience. 

With this work and exhibition, my goal was to create a visual and interactive conversation about our evolving relationship with space, art, and technology. So many of our myths and stories are connected to the stars, introducing our imaginations to things beyond our comprehension. It is the unimaginable possibilities that the cosmos provide us and plays with our notions of reality, to which Galileo opened the doorway to further our curiosity.