WASHINGTON – Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences announces Lia Halloran: Warped Side, an exhibition showcasing the collaborative journey of artist Lia Halloran and Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Kip Thorne. Together, they intertwine science, art, and poetry to illuminate the extraordinary phenomena of warped space and time, including black holes, wormholes, and gravitational waves. The exhibition opens on Feb. 3, 2025, at the National Academy of Sciences and will be on display until June 1, 2025.

Over 13 years, Halloran created more than 650 paintings while collaborating with Thorne on their book, The Warped Side of Our Universe: An Odyssey through Black Holes, Wormholes, Time Travel, and Gravitational Waves. This exhibition features a selection of 31 paintings published in the book, plus five new large-scale works that expand upon each chapter’s themes, and a short video by Paula Froehle of Opal Pictures about Halloran and Thorne’s collaboration.

The narrative is brought to life through figures known and unknown, including Halloran’s wife Felicia as an intrepid space-time traveler navigating the forces of the universe, Stephen Hawking, and Kip Thorne himself, contemplating the potential risks and rewards of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory(LIGO) project. Their human presence makes these abstract cosmic concepts more accessible, offering viewers a personal connection to the often overwhelming, enigmatic universe.

Halloran and Thorne’s collaboration began with prose and paintings that sparked dynamic conversations, leading to new artistic and scientific directions. For Halloran, the challenge lay in translating Thorne’s complex ideas about the unseen universe — concepts he conveyed to her through words and sketches — into simple, accessible paintings. For Thorne, the collaboration led to an unexpected transformation. Upon seeing his prose alongside Halloran’s paintings, he discovered its inherent poetic quality and transformed his scientific explanations into verse, making esoteric complex cosmic phenomena more approachable and understandable. The result is an innovative approach to communicating the essence of complex science: an elegant synthesis of poetry and paintings.

Visitors can explore the book in the gallery to experience how the artwork and Thorne’s verse interweave to illuminate cosmic mysteries.

Lia Halloran, an award-winning artist who has exhibited widely in galleries and museums, is an associate professor and chair of the art department at Chapman University, Orange, California, and is represented by the gallery Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

Kip Thorne, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, NAS member, and the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at Caltech, is the author of the best-selling books Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy and The Science of Interstellar.

Lia Halloran: Warped Side is on view at the National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. The building is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and closed on weekends and holidays. A government-issued photo ID is required. Halloran and Thorne will speak at a public lecture during Space Science Week on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. at the National Academy of Sciences.

Cultural Programs of the NAS sponsors exhibitions, salons, theatrical readings, and other events that explore relationships among the arts and sciences. The NAS is a private, nonprofit institution that recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and — with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine — provides science, technology, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

Pictured: Lia Halloran, WS385, 2022, ink on Dura-Lar, 14 x 17 inches

Post Type

  • Press Release

Publish Date

January 29, 2025