"Never Bet Against Me (Voyager) is from a series of paintings I created around 2010-11 remixing diagrams from the cover of the 1977 Voyager Golden Record time capsule, which included sounds and images on Earth.

In this painting, all diagrams have been spliced away from the golden record leaving a lone rendering of a hydrogen atom in its two lowest states. The subtitle "NEVER BET AGAINST ME" anchors the painting, it's a multi-layered mantra.

On the one hand, it is a sci-fi homage to the indomitable human spirit encased within the Voyager machine travelling through the darkness of interstellar space in search of extraterrestrial intelligence.

On the other hand, I see it as analogous to the will of the Artist and the struggle to manifest the creative spark which can not be contained or destroyed.

In my mind's eye, I used the mantra NEVER BET AGAINST ME throughout the series as I imagined a viewer or collector would see themselves in the prayer, and register it like a psychological mirror to their own power."

-- Slater Bradley