Reflections of the Beginning
BRIANNA BLANCHARD
February 25th, 2026
Major: Environmental Public Health
Genre/Medium: Oil painting on canvas
About the Work:
Reflections of the Beginning is an oil painting on a 20” by 16” stretched canvas. It invites viewers to contemplate how exploration and looking outward into space can also help humans look inward at our own origins. Diving deeper into the background, it is theorized that Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid and also the core of a protoplanet that might have been destroyed during the formation of the solar system. Considering this, studying it has the potential to help researchers better understand how planets form. This mission offers a rare opportunity to think more intentionally about Earth’s own core and how our planet might’ve come to be.
In terms of its composition, the piece depicts a calm and quiet shoreline just before the moment of sunrise, with the water being rather still. Hovering above the surface of the water is an ornate gold mirror, with its “reflection” not showing the worldly scene in front of it, but instead, revealing the Psyche asteroid in space through a portal. Aside from the mirror motif, water and a compass play symbolic roles. The water represents life and Earth itself, as I strongly associate it with our planet as being the foundation that makes life possible in the first place. As for the compass, it implies the direction of a hidden sun, which is an intentional reference to the Psyche spacecraft’s current position during solar conjunction (a moment where a solar system object is on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth). Even across vast distances of hundreds of millions of miles, this subtle sense of shared direction connects Earth and our own perspective to the long, ongoing journey of the mission.
In the process of creating this piece, I wanted to challenge myself by transitioning from my usual acrylic paints to working with oils paints for the first time. I was drawn to oils because of their ability to blend smoothly and create rich colors, which felt especially fitting for a painting such as this one with a vibrant sunrise in the background. Although I completely fell in love with the softness and depth that this medium allows for, the slow-drying nature of it introduced me to a new kind of patience in my process. I was forced to sit with each layer before moving forward to the next, and I’m grateful that it helped me plan different sections more intentionally.
Overall, I hope this piece can blur the lines between science and introspection. In a way, by framing space exploration as both a technical pursuit and a philosophical one, Reflections of the Beginning is about humanity’s timeless drive to look beyond the horizon and question our own origins.
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