Michelangelo's Touch of Chaos

The Science

The piece resembles space (some would argue the picture depicts a black hole, but others could say it depicts space more generally) and my aim was to link space science and art. Physicists are attempting to understand the history of the universe and The Big Bang framework provides perhaps the best attempt to explain the creation of matter, space and time some billion years ago. 

According to this framework, 13.77 billion years ago, the universe was incredibly hot and incredibly small (about the size of a peach). Scientists suspect that, when our cosmos was less than a second old, it went through a period of incredibly rapid expansion, known as inflation. In less than a blink, the universe expanded rapidly and when this rapid expansion slowed down, the universe was filled with matter and radiation, while a few minutes later (literally), the first elements emerged.

While scientists suspect that this framework is correct, there are still so many unknowns. Most significantly, we don’t know what caused the inflation, what provided the power source for the incredible expansion event, why it lasted as long as it lasted, and what stopped it. 

Where science fails to provide a theoretical explanation, ideas by people like me, who believe in the existence of God, come into play. This is also where my art - and definitely Michelangelo’s artwork - provide a narrative complementary to science. 

The Creation of Adam, which is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo and which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling  in the Vatican City, depicts the spark of life given by God to the first human, Adam. 

My photography too is an attempt to explain the universe when it was just a few seconds old. God, my artwork suggests, sparked life in the universe: it is God’s touch that triggered the universe to expand and it is Michelangelo's painting that touched the chaos.