Gravitational Waves at the IAS

Editorial / Science Illustration • The Institute for Advanced Study • 2024
Stylized illustration of an autumnal scene at the famous Institute Pond at the Institute for Advanced Study. Silhouettes of people around the pond observe a strange event in the dark, star-filled water: two orbiting black holes create ripples, symbolizing gravitational waves. Art by Olena Shmahalo for The Institute Letter.

FOR
The Institute for Advanced Study - The Insitute Letter, 2024. Thanks to Genevieve Looby and Lee Sandberg

WORK
Concepts, illustration

TOOLS
Clip Studio Paint, Procreate

INFO
An autumnal scene at the Institute Pond: onlookers observe a gravitational-wave-emanating event in the dark, star-filled water — two black holes orbiting around one another, sending out ripples. Created for The Institute Letter, Fall 2024. The digital edition is available for free, here.

The Institute for Advanced Study's founding principle was "the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake" — basic science. The IAS is well-known as the academic home to scholars incl. Einstein, Gödel, von Neumann, et. al.

Researchers at the IAS today continue to make major breakthroughs in theoretical physics and mathematics. I've art-directed / illustrated / photo-edited articles about some of their work: Nima Arkani-Hamed, June Huh, Juan Maldacena, Nathan Seiberg, Akshay Venkatesh, Edward Witten.

Spot illustrations: three pools with fall leaves scattered around them contain scenes of physical phenomena related to gravitational wave research. The top pool shows pulsars sending out pulses. Bottom-left: a globular cluster. Bottom-right: a particle collision.

Spots

Three pools with fall leaves scattered around them contain scenes of physical phenomena related to gravitational wave research. The top pool shows pulsars sending out pulses. Bottom-left: a globular cluster. Bottom-right: a particle collision.

IAS-Pond_GravWaves_Process_01

Process from rough greyscale to color finish

Rough concept sketches. Title: (A) The Pond. Descriptive text around the images says: There's a chill in the air and something strange is happening at the IAS pond... Onlookers gathered around the pond observe a gravitational-wave-emanating event in dark, starry water. (Shown here with neutron stars, but could be black holes or any of the other candidates.) Spots – Different-shaped pools of water with ripples and fall leaves.

Early concept sketches

© Olena Shmahalo