PEGASUS IN FLIGHT (1990) by Michael Whelan, cover for the book by Anne McCaffrey
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TIME PASSING (2007) by Michael Whelan
Oil on Panel - 26” x 16”
As a native Californian, I really enjoy the change in seasons that I experience living in New England. There is even beauty to be found in the shadows of the leafless trees against the pale gray winter sky. However when I finished this Portals painting in March, I was definitely ready to start seeing more of the sun!
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WILD MAGIC (2003) by Michael Whelan, cover for the book by Jude Fisher
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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.
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ARKADY by Michael Whelan, cover for Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation
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COUNTERPOINT (2015) by Michael Whelan
Acrylic on Cradled Canvas Panel - 6" x 6"
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ADVENTURES OF LITTLE FUZZY (1983) by Michael Whelan, cover for the book by H. Beam Piper
(via theartofmichaelwhelan)
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GRAVITY (2002) by Michael Whelan
Acrylic on Canvas - 43” x 35”
Once when I was being sedated for surgery and I was counting backwards, “99, 98, …” I felt this surge of irresistible calm sweep over me like a vast tide of night. While I floated away I felt myself become totally, completely relaxed. I realized in an instant that I had been unknowingly living my life in a state of being clenched. It was a blessed relief to feel all the tension completely give way to ultimate relaxation—maybe for the first time in my adult life.
In the days and weeks of recovery and rehabilitation that followed and the exigencies of getting back to work, I forgot that brief flash of self-awareness, but fortunately the memory returned one night just as I was falling asleep. With the awareness came this metaphor for the experience.
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GOLDEN DREAM (1982) by Michael Whelan, cover for the book by Ardath Mayhar.
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WINDOW TO THE SUN (2006) by Michael Whelan
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 13” x 11”
Since my most recent resolution to devote all my time to my gallery work I’ve been obsessed with painting these passageways. It doesn’t take a Sigmund Freud to figure out why. The career transition I seek to make is a prospect both compelling yet unnerving, so my dreams are filled with these iconic representations of my ambivalences. Most seem to be subjective derivations of experiences in previous years, exploring ruins of castles and abbeys in the UK.
In the case of this particular example, I have placed the symbol of my soul consciousness or desires on the other side, waiting for fulfillment. Waiting for me to come into the full light. I’m sending messages to myself here…. I think.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
