The idea of the “multiverse” has emerged over the past few decades in the fields of astronomy, cosmology, physics, philosophy, religion, and literature. This theory– hypothetical and controversial–suggests that our known universe may be just one among many, and that the multiverse contains the absolute entirety of everything: time, space, matter, energy, human consciousness, and the physical laws and constants that bind it all together.

Certainly, no artwork can even begin to approximate the absolute entirety of everything. But abstract painter Lynda Schlosberg creates images that seek to describe how the idea of the multiverse might be approached visually, metaphorically, and emotionally.

Schlosberg’s paintings could be considered as slices of the multiverse that depict neither appearance nor extent, but rather underlying principles. Her dynamic compositions of points, lines, skeins, webs, and waves reflect constant change, the yin/yang of order and chaos, size and scale that telescopes from the microscopic to the immeasurably vast, and unfathomable complexity and possibility. They also explore how our human nervous systems, with our limited powers of perception and comprehension, struggle to make sense of it all, rationally or spiritually.

Inspiration for her visual vocabulary comes from the history of abstract painting over the last 100 years, but also from the imaging techniques of contemporary science. These are the very tools that have contributed to the notion of the multiverse: satellite telescopes, ray tracings from cloud chambers, microphotography, fractal geometries, graph theory, neural networks, mental mapping, data theory, quantum physics, and string theory. By bridging the image generation methods of the arts and the sciences, Schlosberg helps us to imagine the unimaginable, and delight in the shifting beauty of Everything.

Lynda Schlosberg was the First Prize winner in last summer’s 82nd Annual Regional Exhibition of Art & Craft at FAM.

Nick Capasso
FAM Director