Artist Mark Heine’s paintings are out of this world, or at least they will be when his art travels to the moon this year.

Heine is one of 3,000 visual artists chosen to be part of the Lunar Codex collection which is bound for the moon surface in December as part of the first commercial moon launch in history and the first US lunar landing. in over 50 years.

“The surface of planet Earth is changing so quickly that we don’t really have a lot of artwork from ancient times. On the moon, it will just be there forever, so it’s a pretty weird feeling,” he said. Heine told Kathryn Marlow. CBC On the island.

The Lunar Codex Project describes itself as a “message in a bottle for the future” that uses digital and analog technology to preserve art, books and music in time capsules to be left on the moon. The capsules will be transported as part of NASA’s lunar exploration program called Artemis.

Heine calls himself “a child of the space race”. He still vividly remembers when Apollo 8 landed on the moon at the age of seven.

“It’s exciting to think that soon I will have my own little presence in this far away place of my childhood dreams,” said Heine.

The two digitized paintings of Heine to be included in the time capsule are called Imminent and Constraint.

His paintings are part of his ongoing series called Sirens, which features visualization of key moments from his upcoming novel of the same name.

Promote sustainability

He says the underlying message of the series and his book is to promote environmental stewardship and sustainable thinking among young adults.

“He’s trying to change the attitudes of young people and the way they treat the natural environment. So this message is important now,” Heine said.

Heine says it’s amazing to think that the time capsule that carries his artwork will be on the moon forever and someone will find it someday in the future.

“The idea of ​​sending these posts to the moon is that it tells whoever finds them, what current thinking is and what is worrying people right now,” he said.