Galactic Stories by Sandra Kaplan

June 26 - August 28, 2014 in the Fulginiti Gallery


Kaplan, Sandra Galactic Stories

In Galactic Stories, history, science, philosophy and art collide. Tales of gods and goddesses merge with images of nebulae many light years away. Russian and United States explorations of space inspire my own “spatial” explorations. The images sometimes may seem incompatible, but they’re part of an encompassing continuum. In Sam and Streilka (above) for example, a Russian dog who traveled in space is only brush strokes away from The Big Bang. It is my hope that the painting is thematically expansive — as well as visually unified.


These paintings and their use of mixed media are not an attempt to illustrate scientific ideas and theories, but to use those ideas and theories as a springboard from which to launch my paintings and collages.  Maps and charts figure into these works, as well.  Maps chart what we think we know, yet, to me, they always suggest that there’s more to discover. In the case of Galactic Stories, part of that discovery involves removing what is linear and time-specific in a chart (the information) and exposing its underlying skeleton (the structure), then building my painting on that foundation.  The paintings and collages also may be a metaphor for the always tenuous state of what we know, the way knowledge begins, morphs and transforms into something else as we learn more.

I’m not entirely sure where the line between reality and imagination begins and ends. The best I can say is that the skies are full of astonishments that can expand the field of artistic play, and those are the fields in which I’m currently working

Sandra Kaplan


Commentary about Galactic Stories can be found on Sandra's blog.​​

The Englewood Herald also published an article about the exhibit.

Colorado Public Radio's Weekend Arts Roundup featured Galactic Stories.

View the exhibition catalog
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