Heather Merckle

Encountering an Asteroid in your basic everyday life might seem unrealistic, after all their impact could potentially wipe out large populations. But what if Asteroids were a part of our daily existence, needing human interaction, requiring mobility. In a more physical exploration of having to live with asteroids, I am creating wearables. In “How to pack an asteroid on your back” I have created a large, awkward asteroid backpack, bringing it into our personal living space and the space of others. Having the asteroid attached to this backpack and in this form, I am making visible the things that we carry or pack around with us everyday, personal things that only we can feel and that are not visible to others. 

HLWA (How to live with Asteroids) a series of nine paintings depicting when asteroids descend and how to live with them, illustrating real life situations of their presence. Asteroids are the closest thing to our world and perhaps the biggest determinant of our destiny. But what if we had the opportunity to tame them before they destroy us? In this space-like reality my paintings ask and demonstrate just that, how to live with them in everyday situations and even sometimes on a road trip, or when the lights go out. Masked with absurdity and humor to add dimension and other interpretations, including responsibility, ownership and metaphors for things and ideas that we simply do not interact with and avoid in our everyday existence. The Asteroids become the main focus, they take up space, are from space, ultimately obstructing our line of vision and invading our personal space.

In a new series of drawings using pastel, paper cut outs and white ink on paper, I am investigating the existence of photons, specifically with a granular structure as particles of light. Capturing this tiniest of particle, that is said to never be moving less than the speed of light, the drawings are an imagined, fixed glimpse of photon particle interaction, on the smallest scale of quantum mechanics. Each drawing can be viewed as an external or electromagnetic field, where a light matter interaction creates a visible illuminated mass, or particle. In quantum mechanics, particles are quanta of a field, just as photons are quanta of light. Only when they interact with something else they manifest themselves as particles: on our eyes, light can be seen in separate droplets, or as a swarm of photons. These small bright spots are also a reminder that everything is interconnected; matter, molecules, orbiting celestial bodies, making areas of activity illuminate, and at the same time showing interactive relationships between what cannot be seen and what is visible. 

With a new fascination for physics, astronomy, and cosmology, in a place that merges art and science through metaphor and visual experience, I have been exploring the philosophical and spatial state of spacetime, quantum fields, black holes, photons, clouds and the vacuums of space. What happens when you give these elusive ideas a physical presence? 

“But they will not possess you, so much as you will come to possess them” a group of drawings documenting the deflation process of helium filled balloons as metaphors for relationships and the ideas that surround them: reality and appearance, unity and plurality, attachment and detachment; exploring my own sense of loss and fulfillment, and the balloons overall connection to the human form. Observing the balloon as it cycles through a life of growth, deflation and decay, I capture, record and associate its connection to mortality and humanity. Making highly detailed graphite drawings and mixed media collages incorporating charcoal, liquid graphite and paper cut outs I am examining differences in shape, texture and weight, capturing the balloon’s impermanence, it’s metaphorical associations for the emotional and physical transformation of people and their relationship to each other.