Ghost in the Machine: Works by Timothy Makepeace
June 13-August 9
Timothy Makepeace, Artist
Thomas Drymon and Michael O’Sullivan, Curators
Timothy Makepeace, JWST - Central Baffle Detail, 2019. Charcoal and pastel on paper, 49 x 49 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Timothy Makepeace, Mid-Infrared Instrument Light Path, 2025. Sumi ink and acrylic paint on paper, 49 x 49 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Overview & Events
Walking Tour with Artist: Ghost in the Machine
Saturday, July 11, 11:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Walking Tour with Artist: Ghost in the Machine
Saturday, July 25, 11:00–11:30 a.m.
Gallery Talk: Ghost in the Machine
Saturday, August 1, 2:00–3:00 p.m.
Over a 40-year career, Tim Makepeace has maintained a singular focus on both the material world and its immaterial presence. He continues this dual investigation with Ghost in the Machine, turning his attention to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—the most powerful infrared space observatory ever devised. The telescope was launched in 2021, but in 2017 while the telescope was still under construction at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Makepeace was invited to observe and create artwork in response to this technological marvel.
Since those early visits, Makepeace’s keen powers of observation and unfettered imagination have taken him to places previously unconceived.
Rich in detail and expansive in scope, this exhibition extends the artist’s long engagement with the industrial landscape. Yet rather than simply document a piece of exquisite space hardware, Makepeace’s newest works ask probing questions: What is the relation between the physical and ephemeral; space and time; the finite and the infinite; the cosmic scale and the subatomic? What do our efforts to understand the world around us reveal? Do we loom large or small in an expanse whose boundaries we have not even begun to define?
Timothy Makepeace, Ray Tracing Derivative Study v.1, 2025. Acrylic paint on paper, 49 x 49 inches. Courtesy of the artist.