Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018

Rujeko Hockley: Planes, Rockets and the Spaces in Between is one of the largest canvases she had realized up to that point, and it's one of the first times where we have a very detailed and complex background and composition. 

Narrator: The title may suggest that the plume of smoke on the left has been made by a rocket launch. Still, the painting invites a lot of questions. 

Rujeko Hockley: There's a sense of mystery, but also a sense of wonder in the sense that a rocket taking off or kind of exploration of outer space is always this incredible thing, this unimaginable achievement of humanity. Another thing that's interesting about this painting is that the two figures, though not explicitly, do seem that they could be a couple, the two young women standing and watching this happen. One of whom has her back to us and stares out at this scene, and the other of whom turns on her foot to look back at us, to look back at the viewers. And so the idea of these Americans, these young women, these people who are possibly in a relationship with one another, bearing witness to this spectacle, to this scientific achievement, but also in this surreal, dream-like expanse and landscape is something that I think is unique to this painting.