For my final project, I chose to incorporate two of my favorite lessons from the semester: Futurism and Impressionism.
Before I began, I brainstormed ideas related to the future of energy transformation and efficiency, which relates to the lesson on Futurism. In one of my other classes, we discussed fusion energy extensively. While it is still far from being a widespread, usable source of power, there have been some exciting developments. Just a few months ago, China reportedly ran a fusion reactor for about 17 minutes, surpassing the U.S., which had previously only sustained one for under two minutes. This current event inspired the fusion reactor design featured in my artwork, connecting directly to the theme of Futurism.
The second lesson I incorporated was Impressionism. I particularly enjoyed exploring how to depict motion in my work. To emphasize movement in the dotted areas, I used a broken Q-tip to drag lines through the paint. I applied this same technique at the core of the fusion reactor, creating the longer red lines you see in the piece. I also tried to show movement with those longer red lines by having them seem like they loop around the center of the reactor. I also wanted to experiment with complementary colors, so I included red and green, yellow and purple, and blue and orange pairings throughout the composition. I have really enjoyed this class, and it has been a long time since I picked up a paintbrush, and this was the first time I created something outside of the typical classroom time constraints.
Good news for nuclear fusion: China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak recently beat its own record, containing H-mode plasma f












