TERMINUS (2007) by Michael Whelan
Acrylic on Canvas - 36” X 48”
Growing up in the fifties and sixties most of us fully expected the progress so evident in society and the space sciences to continue at the same headlong pace they had shown during those years. As a young boy I never imagined that by the new millennium we would not even have a base on the moon yet!
This painting references the space program, specifically the manned missions to the moon and beyond. Clues abound, all related to what Laurie Anderson has termed the “Post-Lunar Period.” The moon missions ended with Apollo 17, so orange signs go from the near disastrous mission #13 (the sign is bent and askew) to the final one #17. That seventeenth mission left on December 14th, 1972 when I was 22. The figure is an oblique reference to myself as a child, trying to peer into a wondrous yet mostly indiscernible future.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
