"When I first saw the photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, something profound shifted inside of me – as if I had suddenly found something I knew intimately, yet didn't know I had lost."
Johanna Baruch is a contemporary painter based in San Francisco and Inverness, California, whose work translates the profound beauty and mystery of deep space into luminescent oil paintings. Born in New York City, she studied at the Art Students League before earning her Bachelor of Arts from New College of California and furthering her technique through travels in the Middle East and Europe.
Inspired by Hubble James Webb space telescope imagery, Baruch creates intuitive responses to astronomical phenomena rather than literal representations. Working in oil and alkyd on aluminum panels with multiple translucent glazes, she captures everything from swirling nebulae to theoretical concepts like black holes through what she calls "an alchemical process."