Seeing Stars: New exhibition takes art into outer space

A new exhibition at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery is shining a light on contemporary artists who use the newest technologies for space imaging in their art practice.

Guest curated by visual artist and PhD student at the School of Design, Hondartza Fraga, Seeing Stars explores our long-lasting fascination with outer space.

The exhibition showcases the work of contemporary artists and asks whether the spectacular astronomical images science has given us have eclipsed the human imagination, which in the past led to tales of gods, monsters and more.

Exhibition curator Hondartza Fraga said: "The advances in imaging technology mean that we are getting used to seeing ‘perfect’ images of space, to seeing farther and farther away. But those seamless images are usually careful constructions, composed out of many pictures.

“We are getting better and better at smoothing over the limits, errors and noise of our technologies. Art, I believe, is always ready to consider those imperfections, to embrace them even – this is a core theme in the exhibition. "

“We are getting better and better at smoothing over the limits, errors, and noise of our technologies. Art, I believe, is always ready to consider those imperfections, to embrace them even – this is a core theme in the exhibition."

Other exhibiting artists include Stella Baraklianou, Vija Celmins, Zachary Eastwood-Bloom, Lia Halloran, Mishka Henner, Julia F. Hill, Risa Horowitz, Melanie King, Mark Lascelles-Thornton, Paul Magee and Thomas Ruff.

Display Highlights

Making Space for Women

Lia Halloran’s work ‘Your Body is a Space That Sees’ is a series of cyanotype prints that source historical imagery to trace the contributions of women in astronomy from antiquity to the modern-day. Halloran’s work draws from narratives such as the historical accounts of Hypatia of Alexandria, and the work of a group of women at Harvard in the late 1800’s known as Pickering’s Harem or the Harvard Computers.

Lia Halloran, Spiral, 2017 © Lia Halloran. Courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

The Speed of Light

Up and coming artist, and PhD student, Melanie King’s work, ‘Ancient Light: Rematerialising The Astronomical Image’ considers how light travels thousands, if not millions of years, before reaching photosensitive film or a digital sensor. Using analogue photographs King’s atmospheric images depict dramatic starscapes.

Melanie King, Ancient Light, 2018. © The Artist

To Infinity

‘From Here to Infinity’ by Julie F. Hill responds to the vastness of space as represented by modern science. Hill employs photography, image-making, sculpture, installation and more to explore conceptions of deep space and time.

Julie F. Hill, From Here to Infinity Fig 95. © The Artist.

Gods and Myths

Zachary Eastwood-Bloom’s series of work, ‘Divine Principles’, uses the planets of the solar system as its starting point. The series explores how humans have attempted to understand the universe and the planets in our solar system through religion, mythology, geometry, and science. The sculptures depict distorted Hellenic gods, and represent how ideas, including how humans explain the universe, change over time.

Zachary Eastwood-Bloom, Kronos/Saturn, 2017. Courtesy of Pangolin London. © The Artist.

Further Information

Seeing Stars runs until Saturday 30 July 2022 at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery. Entry is free. For more details and opening times, visit the Galleries website.

For more details please contact the Press Office at pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk.