“Astronomical: Gazing Inward and Beyond” open at Hicks Art Center

Hicks Art Center Gallery’s summer exhibition, “Astronomical: Gazing Inward and Beyond,” is on view now through Sept. 8, in the Hicks Art Center building on the campus of Bucks County Community College in Newtown.

The artists in “Astronomical: Gazing Inward and Beyond” look to celestial bodies of constellations and galaxies that have sparked curiosity, amazement, narrative folklores, the metaphysical and scientific discoveries since Mesopotamian times as source material for their artworks.

From paintings depicting deep space, appropriated imaginings of life on other planets, the Astronomy Picture of the Day stream to abstract renderings and graphic collages of cosmos’ powerful divine influence over astrology, the works in the exhibition demonstrate the broad range of artistic explorations, interpretations and experimentations found in the vast and awesome material realm of outer space and the Earth.

Participating artists include: Charles W. Bennett, Bucks students and alumni; (Dana Beck, Shana Dansereau, Alicia Fredericks, Carmen Gisondi, Ryan Makowski, Haley Malone, Christina Roett and Matthew Small) Katelyn Garcia, Christine McHugh, Erica Ryan Stallones, LeRoy Stevens and Andrea B. Wallace.

As a retired aerospace engineer, Bucks County resident Charles W. Bennett had a remarkable career designing power systems for many NASA and government satellite programs, including GPS, EOS (Earth Observing System), and Apollo, while specializing in advanced battery and solar array designs.

Combining his engineering background with woodworking, Bennett is exhibiting a wood tablet with planetary inlays depicting their relationships to scale. Also on view are Bennett’s collection of commemorative vintage posters from satellite missions NASA—GSFC LANDSAT-7 and satellite images of aerial land documentation.

For information, visit hicksgallery.bucks.edu or call 215-968-8425.

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