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As artist Luke Jerram's third shrunk-down yet hyper-real celestial body sculpture, Mars, lands in Greenwich towards the end of 2024, he writes what it's like to put cosmic orbs into awe-inspiring settings.
A small girl came up to me at an exhibition of Museum of the Moon and asked if I would put the Moon back afterwards?!
My Mars artwork — which has already appeared in London's Natural History Museum — was originally commissioned by the UK Space Agency to celebrate their research. Through the NASA satellite imagery, it's amazing to see all the craters, valleys and mountains. You can clearly see that there used to be seas on the surface which all evaporated over time, through the dried-up deltas and river channels on the now barren surface.
Culturally, I've really enjoyed researching about humanity’s relationship to Mars, through science fiction, but also over a far longer duration of time. The Romans used to describe Mars as "the pink one." Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest mountain in the solar system; it is three times the size of Mount Everest. On the southern hemisphere of Mars, there is a crater that looks like a smiley face! It will be fun for visitors to try and spot it.
The Painted Hall in Greenwich's Old Royal Naval College is a work of art in its own right. With the extraordinary paintings and the way the light filters in through the lattice windows, it frames my large scale astronomical artworks so well. The mythological imagery on the walls of the Painted Hall is in keeping with Mars, which as a planet has inspired so much mythology and storytelling through the ages.
Each year I have around 115 exhibitions in around 30 countries. Many of these are Earth, Moon and Mars exhibitions, but I'm also touring other projects and am making new installations and sculptures all the time. Together the artworks are experienced by over two million people each year. I'm proud that they bring so much joy to people across the world.
I've recently started developing a new Sun artwork, so this isn't yet the end of my journey with this body of celestial work.
Luke Jerram's Mars: War and Peace, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, 24 November 2024-28 January 2025
