Bubbles and the Universe

I’ve always been captivated by bubbles, they seem so simple at first glance, yet are surprisingly complex. As an artist, capturing a bubble has always been a challenge, but it’s one I love. For me they reflect something profound.

Kaukau ata i Ōtautahi mō Matariki | 2024

At one point I was curious to see when bubbles appeared in art. 

The first known depiction of a soap bubble in Western art is often attributed to the Dutch painter Cornelis Ketel in 1574. It symbolises the fleeting nature of life.

There’s a few other examples but bubbles don’t often feature in classical paintings. I think there are a few reasons. 

Classical art was dominated by religious stories, mythology, portraits of the elite, and historical events. Bubbles didn’t quite fit into the serious, moral narratives.

When bubbles did appear, they were usually symbolic, representing the transience of life, but even then, they weren’t a common motif.

Culturally, bubbles might have been seen as trivial or associated with children’s play, not quite fitting the serious themes that wealthy patrons of the arts preferred. It wasn’t util later art movements, like Rococo and into modern art, that we see a shift towards lighter, more whimsical subjects, including bubbles.

For me bubbles are way more fascinating than something considered child play. In many ways, bubbles mirror our universe. Theories in physics suggest that our entire cosmos might be like the surface of a bubble.

Take the Holographic Principle, for example. This idea proposes that our universe might actually be a projection from a two-dimensional surface, much like how a bubble’s surface holds the illusion of depth. Then there’s the Inflationary Universe theory, which imagines our cosmos as one of many bubble universes, each with its own unique story.

The concept of De Sitter Space  likens our expanding universe to the boundary of a bubble. Meanwhile, String Theory suggests that our universe might be a “brane” (a term in string theory that refers to a multidimensional object which our universe might be confined to) floating in a higher-dimensional space, much like how a bubble floats in the air. 

Some theories even go further, proposing that the Big Bang itself was a quantum fluctuation—a tiny bubble in a vast quantum foam that expanded into the universe we observe. Any of this makes as much sense as anything else I’ve heard.

When I started looking at bubbles and trying to draw them I didn’t realise how far they would take me. 

After I wrote this and was about to hit send I saw this quote and immediately saw that it captured ideas I was trying to express:

“I have a theory that the moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. I have tried this experiment a thousand times and I have never been disappointed.

“The more I look at a thing, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I want to see. It is like peeling an onion. There is always another layer, and another, and another. And each layer is more beautiful than the last.

”This is the way I look at the world. I don't see it as a collection of objects, but as a vast and mysterious organism. I see the beauty in the smallest things, and I find wonder in the most ordinary events.

”I am always looking for the hidden meaning, the secret message. I am always trying to understand the mystery of life.

”I know that I will never understand everything, but that doesn't stop me from trying. I am content to live in the mystery, to be surrounded by the unknown. I am content to be a seeker, a pilgrim, a traveler on the road to nowhere.”

Henry Miller on paying attention (1936).