This new artwork presents two slightly different views of the same cosmic event seen as if through a bifocal lens.

As with all my work, there is are metaphysical and personal development implications. The mystically inclined among us may see an illustration of “As Above, So Below”. Or perhaps this will remind you that when you are faced with a problem, it may help to change your point of view. Circumstances won’t change, but things will look different and the open way may be apparent.

Parallax is an effect where the position of something appears to shift when viewed from different positions. You experience parallax when you look first with one eye and then the other eye. What you are looking at appears to move a bit because your point of view has changed.

Astronomers use this phenomenon to calculate the distance to nearby stars. They first make an observation when the earth is on one side of its orbit around the sun and wait six months until the earth is on the other side of its orbit and make another observation. Measuring how much the star has shifted against the background of visible objects and performing a bit of mathematical wizardry, the astronomers can accurately figure out how far away that star is. Objects that don’t appear to shift position are much further away. (I can verify that my keyboard appears to shift, but the distant Blue Ridge Mountains do not.)

The astronomers can get a variety of pictures to inform their suspicions about what’s going on out there by applying various optical filters and computer algorithms to their observations. These are like a window to physics happening that we cannot observe with our own senses. Add to that the knowledge that what the astronomers observe may have happened millions or billions of years ago and there is no reason to accept those beautiful astronomical pictures that inspire such awe as an objectively true reflection of the reality we live in now.

Yet those pictures are clearly relevant. They provide access into another, otherwise imperceptible, dimension. Or put another way, an aspect or extension of our reality that we cannot directly observe.

This artwork is also a parallax view, providing entry into realms beyond our mundane experience.

Parallax View #1 is the latest in my series of works made on a computer by fusing and digitally manipulating images of my paintings with astronomical photographs. It is available as a fine art print.