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Human beings have often dreamt about extra-terrestrial life beyond the boundaries of our solar system. In this powerful painting, John Varriano has given us a compelling idea of what that might be.  The image extends the borders of our imagination, and yet it’s portrayed in such a way that we find plausible, perhaps even believable, that this creature exists.

This strange being possesses an exterior skeleton, forming its outward appearance, something entirely alien to our concept of life. Those ominous triangular teeth indicate that this creature is some kind of carnivore. Just what type of ‘meat’ it diets on is of course open to speculation, but we can suspect that the victim is as strange as the predator itself.  The atmosphere on the planet is different, and we can guess by the sparkling stars that this is a night scene. 

One can sense by the lighting that this planet is further from its star than we are from the sun, and visually it feels colder. The nocturnal light is not coming directly from the star itself but is being reflected by another body, so we can speculate that this alien world has a moon as we do.  Our moon generally casts a whitish-blue light onto the earth, but the cast light in this painting generates purplish shadows.

The artist has thus subtly conveyed, through the use of color, a sense of other worldliness.  Contributing to unraveling the mysteries of the universe, Varriano is working on a series of these extra-terrestrial concepts.