Planetary Exploration through Artistic Imagination and Scientific Discovery

January 6-28, 2023
Planetary Exploration through Artistic Imagination and Scientific Discovery
Opening reception: Friday, January 6, 5:00-9:00 PM
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Saturday, January 28 (only), 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM. Closed Mon Jan 16.

Buckle up all you would-be cosmic explorers! This new exhibition fuses together cutting-edge NASA data with one of the oldest human endeavors, the carving of wood. Planetary geoscientist Robert Jacobsen and local artist Scott Rennie combine their expertise to reveal the water-carved surface of Mars.

Taken from the multi-billion-year history of the Red Planet, these six pieces chronicle the history of water on Mars. This hydraulic evolution is both dramatic and tragic, beginning first with widespread river valleys, deltas and crater lakes, later transitioning to gargantuan floods, and eventually leaving us only with craterside trickles remaining today.

To present this history, native hardwoods and quality resins were selected and then shaped using a CNC machine. The result is several beautiful works of art: distillations of extra-terrestrial nature designed to tell a fascinating 21st-century story of hydraulic evolution in faraway places.

Robert Jacobsen: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=x0P1AEIAAAAJ
Scott Rennie: Instagram @woodgrainterrain