Deep Field Paintings

Artist Statement
Gareth Bate
View Paintings

You are a grain of sand.

The Deep Field painting series is a meditation on our ultimate scale in the universe. It is about vanity and perspective. We are miniscule in an incomprehensibly large and lonely universe, yet we consider ourselves supremely important. In my work, the universe represents a sense of endless possibilities, and yet an existential terror of our final insignificance.

Deep Field is inspired by the photograph known as the "Hubble Ultra Deep Field" taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. For 18 days it shot a long exposure of a section of sky that appeared completely empty. The result was astonishing. At first the image appears to be filled with stars. On closer inspection one realizes that these are in fact thousands of GALAXIES! Every galaxy contains millions of stars, many of which are just like our sun and could have orbiting planets.

The exhibition features paintings of the vastness of space as if viewed from the earth. Essentially they are landscapes of the cosmos. The parallel subjects meld together, our world and the other. Rather than epic scale works, these paintings are intimate, yet they depict vastness and infinity.

Date: April 2009 - Dec. 2010
Medium: Acrylic on wood
Exhibitions:
Something Still, Lonsdale Gallery, 2013.
Deep Field, Gareth Bate Art Projects, 2010.