Sea of Stars

Original on canvas by Paloma King

150x150cm unframed canvas

More by Paloma King

One painting is of the moon, the other of the stars.

Sea of stars is I hope an immersive painting inspired by a phenomenon that occurs in the reefs of the Maldives where there is bioluminescent phytoplankton and the movement of the water in late summer causes it to glow, creating a shimmering effect that looks like the sea is full of stars.

I am always fascinated how the stars interact with our own lives and how the components of our bodies come from the stars - carbon and iron our blood for example - as well as emotional effects of say eclipses etc.

Although I have spent hundreds of hours listening to lectures on cosmology and my great friend is a professor of cosmology, it’s the sense of wonder that stars never fail to evoke in me that seemed to want to appear in this painting and finding them in the sea brings them a little closer to us if only for a while.

The painting again has the appearance of lines that could be poetry or music as usual in my work, no one more surprised than me when then appear, especially as this painting was very difficult technically and the lines were unpremeditated.