Scientists say the universe is made of invisible particles of energy, and they invented mathematics to prove their theories.

Artists see the universe with the mind's eye. They know that the natural world is more than the observable landscape.  For the artist, rocks, trees, water, and light become brush strokes of pigment and medium laid down on a natural base of cloth or paper, interacting with a creative universe.

The natural world processed through the eye, the mind and the hand of the artist forms more than an observable landscape of brush strokes of pigment on canvas.  The result is an alternate version of reality, where stone becomes transparent, trees shape basic elements and particles stream in all directions to build a beach...
Gallery 1
JoAnn Chartier: Exploring the mindscape of the artist

These paintings are part of a series that began with River Oak, painted from a drawing I made of a tenacious tree clinging to the bank of the Yuba River in California's Sierra Nevada. The tree was older than I was at the time, and may have returned to the soil by now. But it endures in my mind, in my painting, and in the invisible particles of its being circulating through the universe.

Wave, Beach and Farm imagine how String Theory might appear stripped of complex math used by physicists to imagine a universe.
Alternate Reality Series: Red Triangle  41x50
River Oak: 44X48
Alternate Reality Series: Wave  32x36 sold
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

–Albert Einstein
Alternate Reality Series: Coast Range  53x44
Alternate Reality Series: Bay 48x44
Alternate Reality Series: Farm  45x55 sold
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Alternate Reality Series: Shoreline  48x43
Rock Life:  Bender