Street Stories Commission inspired by the life and career of Prof Ken Pounds
Prof Ken Pounds (HR 6819, 23+23, 4:4:2)
By Phil Hackett (2020)
Acrylic, chalk, oil pastel, ink, paint pigment and pen on paper.
Elements that make up the image:
The Star Field is of the nearest black hole to Earth (HR 6819) taken by the European Southern Observatory ~ ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin.
The DNA spiral is to represent Ken’s life and the groundbreaking work that has made the University of Leicester famous.
The Rectangles of colour represent negative space images of Radio Crystallography Diffraction X-Ray images taken by Rosalind Franklin that identified human DNA as being a double helix for the first time - this represents the opposite end of the radio telescope/microscope electromagnetic spectrum- and as a reminder that we are all made of stardust.
The orbiting circles of colour is a representative view of our solar systems inner planets orbiting (the black hole in the image).
The Matt black lines across the middle and at each end of the painting are a representative view of football pitch markings (utilising a planets orbit as the centre circle, and the black hole as the centre spot) to represent Ken’s passion (for football) and his honest reasons for becoming a physics astronomy professor.
He told me he picked his university and to stay there to do his PhD partly so he could play and or continue to play in the university football team.
Ken Pounds - Wikipedia
