This was my entry to The Cheltenham Illustration Awards in 2013. The brief was to create an illustration to Gustav Holst’s composition “The Planets”, but also applying the theme of memory.

The composition is a modernist work, consisting of seven separate pieces, each representing a different character, a different personality attributed to a certain planet. They also make a continuous line in time, starting with youth and finishing with old age.

They also show a slight resemblance to bacteria in petri-dishes, that could signify a search for new life elsewhere. The theme of memory applied here is of childhood, the resemblance to marbles represent this idea.

My response to this featured dancers, as I imagined the pieces of music as a ballet, danced on stage by different characters. The figures are made up of fluid lines, interwoven into their environments, creating a map-like surface.