Cosmic Series was created after two inspirational events, a trip to Thailand where Kathleen encountered a lovely mud encrusted cow and a series of podcasts concerning the latest theories about the universe aired in which Kathleen listened to. The cow inspired Kathleen by its shear aesthetic beauty and by the fact that it just happened to look up at Kathleen in the most endearing way. This cow seemed to embody the warmth and tenderness that have made many cultures consider cows sacred. In Vedic literature, the cow is a symbol of abundance and fertility representing both the earth and the sky. To Hindus and Buddhists, cows symbolize patience and holiness and are considered India's most sacred animal. The podcasts inspired Kathleen by providing her with information she could grasp about the nature of light and dark matter, the relationship between space and time as well as the bazaar behavior between matter and antimatter. Both these events caused Kathleen to begin a series of drawings using the cow to communicate these three different aspects of our world. They became her Cosmic Series, using the well-known term, each titled to go along with the idea behind it. Thus LightDark, SpaceTime and MatterAntimatter came into existence.
Cosmic Series- LightDark, digital archival print, copyrighted by Kathleen Zimmerman
LightDark was the first of these three drawings and is shown above. It was the basis for serigraphic print that was just printed at Modern Multiples in Los Angeles, California. In both Kathleen's digital archival and serigraphic prints, she added a block of yellow ink to visually portray the notion of enlightenment that goes along with this series' overall meaning. While LightDark is a portrait; it goes beyond illustrating the particular cow that Kathleen saw but tries to capture the essence of cows in general. By the use of contrasts, waves and a variety of tones as well as the illusion to the starry night sky and the bright day sky, this work of art is meant to communicate a sense of the nature of light and dark matter that makes up our world.
Cosmic Series - LightDark, design for serigraphic print, copyrighted by Kathleen Zimmerman
Above is an image of the digital archival print of LightDark. The serigraphic print's image size is 14 x 18 inches centered on a piece of 22 x 26 inch Coventry Rag paper. It is too big to be scanned at Zimmerman Fine Art Studio so is not shown here but it will be in exhibition soon. We will update this post with the details of where and when. Kathleen is currently refining the scans of SpaceTime and MatterAntimatter so that she can produce serigraphs of them as well. As soon as SpaceTime and MatterAntimatter are finished we will post them on this blog.
Cosmic Series - SpaceTime, digital archival print, copyrighted by Kathleen Zimmerman
Cosmic Series - SpaceTime, design for serigraph, copyrighted by Kathleen Zimmerman