Mixed Media on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

Jessica Curtis has created a body of work that is a direct, creative response to real-time music and visuals from a muon detector (cosmic ray detector) experienced while working in her studio space. This spontaneous dialogue has been coupled with artistic explorations of the various manifestations of muons and their interrelationship to science, sacred geometry and consciousness.

Muons are unstable subatomic particles that are created when cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere and cascade down into many smaller particle. Muons exist for 0.002 milliseconds and move near the speed of light. They go all the way from high up in our atmosphere to deep within the Earth before they fully disintegrate. They give off a small radiation charge as they decay that can be detected by the cosmic ray detectors as they pass through. The only thing that can fully stop a muon is 8m of lead. Muons are travelling through our bodies all of the time. 12 go though your hand alone in every second. There is as much space between each of our atoms as there are between each of the stars.

“Tracings of Light” draws it name from the particle tracings/tracks that are graphic recordings of the movements of muons and other subatomic particles in experiments conducted in the particle colliders of USA and Europe or in cloud chamber experiments. These beautifully random, yet intricate spiralling images are the art of subatomic nature. These patterns are often reflected in the sacred geometry art from cultures around the world.

Cosmic rays detectors similar Jessica Curtis has been inspired by in the Muon installation (see Press section of artist CV) have also been used to explore the hidden structures of pyramids in both Egypt & Mexico. Muons travelling through rock and other dense materials slow and eventually will come to a stop. The muons are caught by the cosmic rays detectors as they pass through the pyramids and record their directions and energies. Using this data scientists can then create a 3D image which reveals the internal structure of the pyramid and any hidden chambers.