Conjectures on a paper sky 

2023-25

Mixed Media on Linen

156 x 78 in. l 396 x 198 cm.

Suite of 10 paintings

Kallat’s practice revolves around inquiry and speculation. Shifting between abstract, schematic, and pictorial imagery, Conjectures on a Paper Sky interweaves fact and conjecture across the physical universe, modern political history, and the fragility of planetary life. This ten-panel painting brings into focus several ideas that recur across the exhibition. Its catalyst is Project A119, a once-classified 1950s military proposal to detonate a nuclear device on the Moon. Kallat summons real and imagined forms of the ballistic—elliptical and parabolic trajectories, alongside forms associated with nuclear fallout. He superimposes blast diagrams with botanical, suboceanic, astral, and geological forms across the painting’s expanse, often allowing his media to crackle, drip, or pool along deviated paths. Notations in indecipherable script evoke an interior register alongside histories of scientific enterprise and speculative thought, set against Kallat’s hand-drawn graph ground. By reflecting on past and possible future extinctions, the work presents Earth as a precariously interconnected cosmic system.