Dr. Gerard van Belle, Director of Las Cumbres Observatory, joined renowned German artist Ulrike Arnold and curator Dr. Rachel Jans at the San Diego Museum of Art for a special public lecture and panel discussion "Meteorites as Artistic Matter."
Held at the museum's Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theater, the event brought together art and astronomy to explore how celestial materials bridge the natural world, terrestrial art, and deep-space science.
Arnold, whose career spans decades of creating large-scale paintings using raw earth, mineral pigments, and cosmic dust gathered from around the globe, has long incorporated meteorite material into her canvases to capture the connection between Earth and the broader universe.
Dr. van Belle and Arnold shared a long-standing friendship and history of cross-disciplinary collaboration. Arnold’s work and creative journey were highlighted in the acclaimed 2019 documentary Dialogue Earth, directed by Hank Levine, which features a segment showing Arnold visiting Dr. van Belle during research observing at night at the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT). Their previous artistic-scientific collaboration also included hosting the inaugural display of Arnold’s landmark One World Painting at the LDT.
During the event, Dr. van Belle, Arnold, and Dr. Jans, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the San Diego Museum of Art, presented short remarks followed by a moderated panel discussion and an interactive Q&A session with the audience. The group discussed the origins of meteorites, their significance as ancient artifacts of our solar system, and how scientific instruments and artistic expressions offer complementary views of cosmic history.
“I've always been fascinated with the connection between art and science,” said Dr. van Belle. “Ulrike's expressive paintings, crafted directly from the soils around her and including meteoric dust, bridges those two subjects together just as it links Earth to the heavens.”
