1. Stardust

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson

We talk about the cycle of life on Earth, but it exists in the heavens as well. Stars are born, live out their existence, and then some explode when the hot Iron core of supermassive stars finally is unable to withstand the gravitational pressure and causes the star to explode and die. When they die, their outer part is driven into space, they scatter into the Universe the elements needed for planet formation and, eventually, for life to arise. 

Death of a star leads to the birth of life somewhere far away in the galaxy. As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, we are "star stuff..."  

I chose the Crab Nebula as my background, that is all the "star stuff" that remains of a tremendous stellar explosion.  The Crab Nebula has been an important part of own human history, dating back to early Chinese and Arab astronomers as early as 1054. It is such a massive explosion that the  energy radiated out in this explosion is more than the total energy emitted by our star, the Sun during its entire life time. A Supernova explosion in a galaxy is brighter than the rest of the entire galaxy! In 1054, this celestial event was so bright that it was seen in the day time. It was easily the brightest object in the sky, besides the Sun and Moon, for several  months.

Birth and Death don't they look like the two faces of the same coin? 

The death of a star leads to the birth of complex life form. Isn't this amazing? Earth, life on earth, we humans all are made up of supernova explosions such as the Crab Nebula. 

As humans, we are part of this phenomenon called "Life". Our existence  depends entirely upon our ability to reproduce ourselves, to procreate. Hence the composition of my painting; a sexual intercourse between a female and a male, both remnants of stardust acting on top of the Crab Nebula... 

This painting will be part of my exhibition on art + science "Two Cultures?".

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. – Carl Sagan