Jorge daCruz - Drawing Notes from the Far Side of the Moon
Text by nOT

Objects and Moons – Dark Side of Our Moon – South Hemisphere is a series of six charcoal drawings that approaches the Moon through absence rather than observation. The works do not depict a visible landscape, but instead respond to a hemisphere that remains permanently out of sight from Earth — a place defined by distance, fragmentation, and incomplete knowledge.

The far side of the Moon is not dark. It receives the same light as the near side, yet it is hidden by a phenomenon known as synchronous rotation. Over millions of years, Earth’s gravitational pull slowed the Moon’s rotation until it matched its orbital period, fixing one face toward us and withholding the other. Even with a slight oscillation — libration — that allows partial shifts in perspective, the far side remains inaccessible as a whole.

This condition of permanent invisibility is central to the series. Each drawing is constructed as a fragment, assembled rather than observed, allowing seams, interruptions, and shifts in surface to remain visible. The circular form suggests completeness, while its internal breaks resist resolution. The Moon appears not as a singular object, but as a body reconstructed through indirect knowledge.

In 1959, the Luna 3 mission transmitted the first images of the far side, revealing a rough, heavily cratered surface, markedly different from the familiar volcanic plains of the near side. That historical rupture — between expectation and revelation — echoes throughout the work. Scientific understanding and imagination intersect here, not to describe the Moon, but to preserve its distance.

Objects and Moons functions as a constellation rather than a unified image. Together, the drawings orbit a shared absence, holding space for what cannot be fully seen, mapped, or possessed.

nOT