Rune Fisker’s Curtain Before Time for New Scientist
The Copenhagen illustrator turns theoretical cosmology into theater.
A figure grips the edge of a curtain and pulls. Two massive drapes part to reveal a dark field of scattered stars behind them. The curtains explode outward, every fold firing off beams of light like a supernova.
Rune Fisker created this cover illustration for Miriam Frankel’s New Scientist feature on numerical relativity. The article’s central conceit is that a curtain has hung over the beginning of time for a century, and a new generation of code is finally pulling it aside.
Fisker’s compositions tend to favor deep perspective where organic forms tangle freely with geometric structure. His figures are elongated and nearly faceless, long-limbed silhouettes mid-stride, clothing and hair trailing in sinuous Art Nouveau curves.
His work thrums with energy. And what more fitting subject to channel it into than the Big Bang itself.
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