We are delighted to welcome Artist Tim Fitzpatrick and his exhibit, Hand Made Light, to the Las Cruces Space Festival. Tim’s installations exploring emission spectra of the elements will be displayed in multiple locations around Las Cruces.
Hand Made Light is the next stage in an evolving series of art installations by Tim Fitzpatrick and is the result of a collaboration with Astronomer Anne-Marie Weijmans of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland on the project Shine. The art takes its inspiration from the intrinsic nature of light, and in particular, through a series of representations of the individual emission spectra of various elements.
Tim Fitzpatrick is intrigued by the science of spectroscopy and consequently by the light as a form of code or language. His work is inspired by the extraordinary level of information contained in the spectrum of starlight and his representations of this fundamental code form a continuing investigation in multiple works and installations.
2019 is the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Periodic System by Dmitry Mendeleev and has since been proclaimed the ‘International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements”. We are excited to explore this through Tim’s art exhibits during the Las Cruces Space Festival.
Tim is also artist in residence with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey based at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico and he is currently leading a project to bring a former observatory of the University of St Andrews back into use as an interdisciplinary space for art and astronomy.
