Painting Space

Thanks to technological boons such as the Hubble Space Telescope (and Hubblesite.org) and Google Sky, it's easier than ever to see beautiful photographic representation of this galaxy and many others in glorious color. But just as photography didn't supplant landscape painting, these digital images of the heavens haven't dissuaded some artists from painting spacescapes. Ellen Ladwig's large-scale works feature representational works of celestial objects such as sombrero and spiral galaxies, but if one were unaware of the subject matter, these pieces could be mistaken for abstract art. That's the beauty of the universe — even depicted accurately, it seems unreal and magical. Ladwig's work is on display in Gallery Visio on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; 314-516-7922 or www.umsl.edu/~visio) as part of the show UMSL Women on the Move 2009. The exhibition opens with a free public reception from 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 22; Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and the show remains up through Thursday, March 5.
Mondays-Thursdays. Starts: Jan. 22. Continues through March 5, 2009