Cosmic Trip
Cosmic Trip celebrates the possibilities of what we can see now through our telescopes, and what might we discover in our future.
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About the artwork
Adam Norton’s Cosmic Trip is located at the top of the platform stairs inside the entrance to Belmore Station. It forms part of the suite of transparent artworks in station concourse windows at the 10 metro stations, from Marrickville to Bankstown, united by the theme Story Line.
The artists designed Cosmic Trip as a speculative journey through the night sky. It depicts planets, stars, galaxies and astral phenomena as they swirl around together in interstellar space. The work is constructed from many small drawings and collages on graph papers, and made with pencil, biro and typewriters, with rips, cuts and glue.
These futuristic stained-glass windows glow in the sunlight, and cast luminous, dynamic geometries across the entrance to the platform.
Passing through this artwork’s portal, we take a Cosmic Trip of the imagination, as we embark on our metro journey to more terrestrial destinations.
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Artist Statement
"I made these works in an attempt to visualise some of the phenomena described in astrophysics. They depict asteroids, comets, planets, stars, galaxies, worm-holes, multi-dimensional space, black holes, gravitational warps and the Big Bang.
The drawings were created with pencils, biros and borrowed typewriters. The collages were made from torn up and locally sourced graph papers and log papers. All these finished A4 drawings could be easily packed to return home.
To make the panels, my original drawings and collages were scanned at ultra-high resolution. The elements where then inverted, colour-altered and re-scaled. The scans reveal the original marks of their making, as well as the printed lines on the paper and even the fabric of the paper itself.
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In bringing the different elements together in two panels I have used bright, vibrant colours, and made the composition as dynamic as possible. I wanted to emphasize the sense of joy and wonderment of observing the cosmos - a fascination that unites us all across history and different cultures.
The evidence of the original construction of the drawings in the final artwork draws attention to the giant changes in scale in going from the micro ideas drawn by hand on paper, to the macro scale of the interplanetary events.
Cosmic Trip celebrates the possibilities of what we can see now through our telescopes, and what might we discover in our future."
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Artist Biography
Adam Norton is a Sydney based artist who grew up in Nigeria, Kenya, and the UK. He has lived and worked in Sydney since 2002. He studied Painting at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University and UNSW Art & Design.
Norton has had public artwork commissioned for Cementa Regional Arts Festival, NSW, and the City of Sydney. Norton has been a finalist in The Blake Prize, The Archibald Portrait Prize and The Moran Portrait Prize. His work has been included in the Biennale of Daejeon, Daejeon Museum of Art, Korea.
To mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic tests at Maralinga, Norton’s work was included in the exhibition Black Mist, Burnt Country, which toured nationally around Australia.
He is represented by Galerie pompom, Sydney.
Adam Norton has work in the collections of Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre; Wollongong Art Gallery; University of Technology Sydney Art Collection; Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, NSW; UNSW Art & Design Student Association and UNSW Art & Design Library; Griffith University Art Collection, Brisbane, QLD; Artbank, Australia; PrintROOM, Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Exeter College, Oxford University, UK and Malvern College, Worcestershire, UK.