SPACE JOCKEY

Art, for as long as I can remember, has always enthralled me. As a young boy I loved drawing and painting; especially anything to do with space. My imagination was fed on a constant diet of Star Wars, The Tripods, War of the Worlds, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Doctor Who and Star Trek to name just a few.

While science fiction helped to fuel my creativity I also found plenty of inspiration in the American and Soviet space missions of the 1980s. I delighted in every Space Shuttle launch and was continually fascinated by life aboard the Mir space station. I also vividly remember the stunning images that Voyager 2 beamed back to Earth from the Uranus and Neptune flybys.

Once I began to explore the heavens for myself with the aid of a telescope, that was it, my imagination went into overdrive. I not only wanted to observe the distant galaxies and remote worlds of our solar system; I wanted to reach out and touch them. It is little wonder then that I have coalesced my fondness for science fiction, a love of art and my passion for amateur astronomy to produce digital visions of far off worlds and alien vistas.

Bert Ulrich, the curator of NASA’s art program, put it best when he said: “Artists share something with scientists, and astronauts in that they are adventurers.” I hope that you will enjoy sharing the adventure with me.