The stars reflect our lives back to us. For millennia, they have been used to locate humans’ position on the land; interpret our narratives; and communicate a world of feeling beyond the physical realm. For contemporary artists, stars are often used to bridge the gap between the scientific and the creative, the rational and the intangible. Their artworks reflect upon traditions of mapping and craftsmanship, creating glittering cosmos in rich textiles or unconventional materials.
This year, Naminapu Maymuru-White has had a prominent position in the Venice Biennale’s central exhibition Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere (on display until 24 November). A Senior Yolŋu Elder whose contemporary art practice encompasses painting, batik, weaving, printmaking and carving, Maymuru-White is showing a selection of miny’tji designs which draw together the serpentine form of Maŋgalili Country’s Milŋiyawuy River and the expanse of the Milky Way. Together, these two natural structures reflect a kinship between the physical world and ancestral realms – she paints from both viewpoints, as though looking up from the ground and down from the sky.
The artist works with traditional techniques passed through the generations, with each work holding a deeply personal and spiritual resonance. “These paintings show the sacred songs story about the establishment of my homeland, Djarrakpi, for the Maŋgalili clan in ancient times,” she tells me. “This was given to me by my father and he told me to hold it strong and to pass it on. This is what I have been doing. This is not just a pretty picture or a nice story. This is the truth. It is a reality for us.”
Her bark paintings, shown at the Biennale, capture the stars in an incredibly evocative manner, as though they are beaming from the work; a powerful illusion of illumination within the surrounding darkness. “It is actually a lot of very hard work,” she says. “We start by finding a good tree which is straight and round that can give us a good bark. We have to go deep into the bush and stand on top of the vehicle to reach these with the axe. We leave the bark under weight for a month after this to dry out. Then we burn, strip, and sand it. After this I glue the face of it and then we are ready to start painting. I start with the black paint, which is made from rocks which we find in special places. I use white clay because these are the colours of the heavens – white and black.”
These pieces highlight the inherent link that exists between the land and the people of the Yolŋu clans. They also evoke the idea of flattening time and space, in which the generations find a place of communion and connection. Through exhibiting her paintings, Maymuru-White shares the traditions and lives of her people. “I feel this sacredness,” she says. “I am painting to try and share that feeling with people who don’t know about it. I want them to feel how special this is.”
American artist Betye Saar has a long-held interest in both astronomy and astrology, exploring the narrative potential of the night sky. She used printmaking in her early works, inspired by mystical items such as palmistry charts and phrenological maps. This feeds into a fascination with space and a connection with clairvoyancy which began when she was a child. She has since explored her own zodiac sign in works such as Mystic Window for Leo (1966). In this piece, the artist used assemblage to convey different interpretations of the leonine sign, highlighting the creative potential to symbolise our own behaviour through the stars. She has also made powerful political work focused on Black liberation and is a keen collector of metaphysical items and alters that connect with her ancestral history.
In 1988, she created Celestial Universe, dying constellations of stars and the zodiac signs inspired by them onto rich blue taffeta. This formed part of an exhibition which also reflected on the practical uses of the stars, referencing their potential for nautical navigation in Voyages: Dreams and Destinations at the National Taiwan Museum of Art in Taichung.
The stark line that we often draw between science and creativity is broken down in Saar’s work, and she does not take a literal approach to the use of astrology in her pieces, focusing on its symbolic rather than rational possibilities. “I’ll read the astrological chart in the daily newspaper, but that’s just for my own amusement,” she has previously said. “I think my use of astrology has two purposes. It suggests the unknown, and then it also suggests the known by the stars and the moon, and so forth, telling your history. If you believe in those charts, their positions pertain to what your personality can do or what your life might be. I don’t really devote my consciousness to that. It’s more the symbols themselves that matter to me, like how the moon suggests peacefulness.”
German-American artist Kiki Smith weaves astrological and astronomical symbols into her weighty tapestries, drawings and sculptures. She is inspired by storytelling of all kinds, from mythology and history to folklore, religion, and literature. Into this she also threads her own experiences. Though her work can be read through many different lenses, it often evokes humanity’s deep connection with the natural world, and our attempts to make sense of it through creative narratives. The cosmos is regularly featured, sometimes with entire constellations mapped out, at other times in the presence of stars more casually dotted through the sky. “I like the stars, the firmament, and the heavens,” she says. “I am very partial to spiralling galaxies and nebulas. I appreciate the incredible space that NASA provides to US citizens. I love comets, metres, and meteorites.”
She often depicts the stars in exquisite, expanded detail. Her archival inkjet and white gold leaf piece Evening Star (2023) shows an owl mid-flight, with its giant wings raised and its gaze locked directly upon the viewer. It is as though it is flying right through the cosmos, with large glistening stars punctuating the space around it. Smith is inspired by the many ways in which traditions of art makers have reimagined celestial bodies. “I enjoy the images different cultures use to create the constellations,” she says. “Persian constellations are unbelievably beautiful, as are many other cultures.”
Smith has previously included her own astrological sign in her work: Capricorn. In 2019 she presented Memory, a copper goat sculpture in the room of a former slaughterhouse in Hydra’s port with a fishlike tail, surrounded by mermen and other animals. “I like having been born in the winter,” she says, “in the silent nights filled with snow and clear skies.” The work also references the Hydra constellation, known as the “water snake”, which is the largest of the modern world’s 88 groupings of stars. This constellation has also appeared in her collage and ink work Noctua, Corvus, Hydra, Filis (2013), in which a giant snake is visited by a smaller owl, cat and crow. While these works reflects upon real formations that exist in the sky, Smith’s intricate, characterful interpretations place them into the world of wild storytelling.
Whether literally mapping the stars, presenting a symbolic representation of them, or bringing both together, many of these works highlight just how important the cosmos is to our experience on earth. They might be light years away, but they have an undeniable pull on our spiritual and emotional connection with one another and our place in the world. It is perhaps in looking so far outwards, that we are able to truly see ourselves reflected.
Words by Emily Steer.
Image 1: Betye Saar, Celestial Universe, 1988. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer.
Images 2 & 3: Naminapu Maymuru-White. Photo: Aaron Anderson.
Image 4: Betye Saar, Window for Leo, 1966. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer.
Images 5 & 6: Kiki Smith, Sungrazer VI, 2019, and Evening Star, 2023. Courtesy of Pace Gallery.
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