"Study for Caldwell 49" by Jan Pieter Fokkens

The colorful paintings of Jan Pieter Fokkens transport us to distant worlds beyond our comprehension. Within his seemingly infinite networks of lines, dots, and crosses, he decodes the recognizable to create something unfamiliar.

Each work begins with a photo captured by a deep-space telescope. Despite their photographic realism, these images of outer space have already been altered, colorized to make impossible sights easy to understand. With the aid of custom algorithms, Fokkens manipulates the already “fake pixels” of these images, isolating qualities of pattern and color. He then hand-paints these abstracted qualities as lines of color on canvas, reconstructing the sense of longing and wonder one feels when they look out at the stars.

Entitled "Study for Caldwell 49," this painting offers a representation of the Rosette Nebula, a bubble of ionized hydrogen located within the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. Located at a distance of 5,000 light-years from Earth, the Rosette Nebula is a star-forming complex that encompasses over 2,500 young stars.

Acrylic on canvas. Framed.