ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT

THE COSMIC JOKE

          I began The Cosmic Joke illustration series, fourteen graphite drawings with thought-provoking titles, in August 2014 during my residency at the Takt Gallery in Berlin, Germany.

         The Cosmic Joke is inspired by early German works. One such powerful influence is Albrecht Durer’s Melancholia, who's Renaissance engravings portray a scientist lamenting over the pitfalls of knowledge and coming to terms with the world around him. My exploration in creating consecutive drawings in the theme of following a journey of discovery was additionally inspired by the breathtaking, Victorian Era piece: The Glove, by Max Klinger.

           As a female illustrator interested in esoteric philosophic journeys, whose influences are predominately male, as historically science and philosophy are in the masculine realm, I strove to create a piece from a point of view that is both rooted in my feminine identity, but neutral in its sympathetic nature. In my work, The Cosmic Joke, the viewer follows a woman who struggles to understand the overarching contradictions of science and faith, with the added perspective of the inherently feminine.  

           The drawings contain a semiotic code which refers to the quantum theories of thinkers such as David Bohm and Niels Bohr. The connotation of symbols as well as the titles of the works encourage the reader to contemplate the paradoxical manner of our ephemeral nature of our individual emotional lives with the concrete infinity of the physical world around us. 

         Following along the theme of paradox, the drawings themselves are set in a framework of storytelling that is both linear and abstract. The series is to read as if a lyrical manual for the thought processes to encourage an understanding quantum mechanics, which I believe is made more intuitive by the empathetic nature of the female perspective. 

       Currently the work is in the process of being published as lithographic prints to be completed in Summer 2015.