ABOUT THE EVENT

What is the "Painted Universe"?
Artist Bettina Forget is organizing an art event to take place at her studio and the adjoining Visual Voice Art Gallery to celebrate International Astronomy Day.
On Saturday, May 10, 2008 she invites the general public to come to her studio/gallery and participate in the creation of a 16' x 8' artwork depicting various night sky objects.

How does this work?
Each participant will be given a 12" x 12" piece of paper (or carton, canvas, tracing paper,...) and a range of art materials to choose from. Bettina Forget also provides source material such as images of planets, galaxies, globular clusters and the like. Once the participant has finished his/her artwork it will be added to the 16' x 8' grid. During the day the grid will slowly fill up, creating a mosaic of night sky images - a painted universe. At the end of the event Bettina will take a photo of the finished collaborative artwork before taking it down on Monday, 12th May. The participants can then come by her studio to pick up their painting along with a copy of the photo of the final "mural".

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Bettina Forget is a visual artist living and working in Montreal, Quebec. Born in Germany, she has studied art at Central St-Martins School of Art in London, England and at Curtin University in Perth, Australia and Singapore.
Bettina's work deals with the subjects of astronomy and meteorology, establishing a link between art and science. Pushing traditional painting techniques to their limits, she subjects her canvases to being frozen into ice, pummeled by rain and scorched by fire. She also invented a technique of cutting holes into stretched canvas and suspending smaller pieces of canvas in the voids, therefore turning paintings into three-dimensional objects.
Bettina is Director of Exhibitionsof the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA) and Vice-President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) Montreal Centre.

FOR MORE INFO
go to the artist's website at
www.bettinaforget.com

Event Date:
May 10, 2008, 12:00noon - 6:00pm