Risa Horowitz

Imaging Saturn is a projected long-term project that will lead to several bodies of work. The project emerged from my experience of seeing Saturn through a telescope for the first time in May, 2010. That observation was a profound personal experience, filled with wonder and question about how vast and incomprehensible is the universe, and whether it is possible to make any sense of it, How inconsequential must earth be, humankind, me; tired and cold on a dark, clear spring night, looking through a device that, optically, cannot possible see far enough? I want to hang on to this sense of discovery and awe.

Imaging Saturn raises questions about the universe from an artistic and philosophical, rather than strictly scientific, viewpoint. The project connects with my ongoing work in my focus upon the expert-amateur in that I am engaging in an interdisciplinary project as a professional visual artist who becomes an amateur astronomer and astro-photographer in exploring the universe through art and for the purposes of art making. The primary project concept for Imaging Saturn involves taking a photograph of the planet through a telescope for each year of the planet's orbit around the sun: 29.42 years. I may tire of this before 2040.

Imaging Saturn, 2011

Imaging Saturn, 2013

Imaging Saturn, 2014

Imaging Saturn, 2015

Imaging Saturn, 2016

In addition to collecting yearly photographs of the planet, I have mounted a solo exhibition of drawings and photographs at MKG127 Gallery in Toronto, February 2013. This work, under the umbrella of the larger program of research involves sky mapping, astronomical drawings, and historical photographic printing techniques. For this I received a Saskatchewan Arts Board Grant.

Oppositions, as installed at MKG127 Gallery

Oppositions, animated gif of drawings

Van Dyke Brown print samples

2012 image, 77' long vinyl installation on north wall of Kenderdine Gallery at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, part of the Sythetic Age exhibition curated by Jeff Nye.

I completed two kinetic sculptural pieces, some photography, and video for this project, mounted at Platform with Video Pool in Winnipeg, January 2016. Click here for documentation.