About the Art: Macrocosm

Update 2017/05/21: Changed post title from “New Art: Macrocosm” to “About the Art: Macrocosm”

Ok! Here’s my newest work, Macrocosm.

I debated with myself over the name of this piece, if it should be called macrocosm or microcosm.

Microcosm is defined as a world in miniature, a small or tiny world. By contrast, macrocosm is the universe, the whole, or any complex entity that is a complete system in itself.

This piece is a number of different things on a number of different levels. It depicts the life contained in a single drop of pond water, as seen under a microscope, but it’s a very vague representation of that life. There’s some algae in there, some tiny pond fronds, even some diatom-like structures and a few things reminiscent of rotifers, all things I just adore spotting with my microscope, but nothing very obvious. In a way it is also the Earth as seen from afar, again with only hints of the life sustained by her. And if you wanted to pull back further, it is also the universe and everything in it, under someone or something’s watchful gaze. Much like a scientist, or even an amateur scientist (moi!), peeping into the tiny world in pond water, hidden from view and yet right there in front of us the entire time, if we got down on its level to look for it.

Going by the definitions, this piece really could be called by either word without trouble. It is a tiny world within a world. It is life in miniature, almost a study of human life if we dared to see the parallels. It is also an entire entity containing and sustaining its own system. That’s really what an ecosystem is, and water is a very, very vast ecosystem. The oceans are unfathomably deep, and most of the Earth is covered with water. A pond, for us, has boundaries, but for the tiny life that calls it home, it’s an entire universe.

It all depends on your viewpoint, your perspective, and it is my perspective to see the layers of life, to view through them, to understand how everything fits together and find common ground among the layers. So, Macrocosm it is.

Peel the onion!