I can be a bit in my own thoughts sometimes. Teachers at primary school would note on my report card that I “stare out of the window too much” — I still do that. Sometimes I’m just distracted by something moving outside, probably a bird (I like birds), but sometimes bigger questions occupy my mind. One of the questions I often find myself wondering about is one that is familiar to anyone in the history of humankind who’s looked up at the starry sky: are we alone? People have wondered about this since we could wonder, probably. What conclusions did they come up with? What stories did they tell one another? 

This painting serves as a visual contemplation of these kind of questions. Incorporated in this psychedelic piece you can find references to ancient Japanese “dogū” (土偶), the Sumarian creation stories, the Fermi paradox, Pillars of Creation, the Arecibo message and the “wow! signal”, amongst others. The universe is so vast, there must be life out there, right? Astrophysicist Frank Drake wrote a mathematical equation calculating the chances of this being the case, and came to staggering numbers — it’s in the bottom left corner of the painting. Look up at the starry sky. Wonder. Imagine. Be overwhelmed. What do you think — are we alone?