Savage Popcorn

If you’ve ever wondered what the quantum world looks like, you could do a lot worse than check out this gallery from artist Dawn Meson.

My work is an attempt to paint the invisible. This series addresses the margins of our scientific understanding: the interactions I depict are theoretically understood but cannot be seen directly. These paintings explore the tiny Quantum phenomena that pervade our everyday world. Using color, translucency, textures and shape as symbols, I hint at the rich complexity and mystery in the subatomic realm. Many pieces also exist as animations of a sort: the introduction and evolution of each element in these works echoes the order of events described in quantum theory. A stop-action rendering of these paintings is captured on digital video.

Though my process attempts to mimic quantum models, this body of work is as much about belief structures as it is about science. For many who are not educated in higher level math, such systems of belief are taken on faith. The use of color and line in some of my paintings hint at this by evoking the look of stained-glass windows. These paintings, inspired by my decidedly non-mathematic interpretations of both quantum observations and theory, celebrate the role of visualization and imagination in scientific progress.

The picture on the left is based on the particle/wave duality of tiny subatomic phenomena.

Different colors and opacities in this painting represent the different levels of probability of “where” in quantum dimensions this particle is. The visualizations here are a meditation on string theory.

There is also a film of the painting here.

(via Cosmic Variance)

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