Marie Green's cosmic-themed oil painting Rosette Nebula (2011) was donated by the artist through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The painting is inspired by the Rosette Nebula, a cosmic cloud of gas and dust which evokes the image of a flower.  According to NASA, this formation is at the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5000 light years away.  The "petals" of this "rose" are actually a stellar nursery whose shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars (catalogued as NGC 2244).  The young stars are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula, catalogued as NGC 2237, is about 50 million light-years in diameter.  The nebula can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

A keen amateur astronomer with an interest in deep-sky objects, Marie has created a number of cosmic paintings over the past couple of years, basing her compositions on observations through her own home telescope and the Hubble images that NASA and other organisations present.

Marie has spent a few years perfecting her oil painting technique in order to paint canvases like Rosette Nebula, a work which represents some 50 hours of work in her studio. 

To create this image, the artist has applied many layers of thin, translucent glazes, with heavier impasto over-painting in parts, to create the illusion of solid matter, fiery gases and dust swirling dynamically in deep space.

Marie says formations such as the Rosette Nebula ‘stop my breath':

"As my nebulae swirl across thousands of light years, I want them to awaken a sense of eternity within the beauty that is our universe," Marie says.

Born in Sydney and educated at Mt Lofty High School and Queensland Institute of Technology, Marie retired from the IT profession in 2005 and moved to Agnes Water, Queensland, with her husband, dogs and boat.

Marie started painting full-time in 2007 and in just six years has had three successful exhibitions in Brisbane and in Anchorage and Wasilla, Alaska, and has won a number of awards, including the People's Choice, 2012 Bayton Award, Rockhampton (sponsored by CQUniversity), First Prize at the 2010 Queensland Alumina Ltd Award and First Prize, Contemporary Section, 1770 Festival of Art (2008).