Hypnotic art has its roots in the terrifying reality of nuclear bombs

The kaleidoscopic patterns in this artwork draw the eye towards its glowing centre. Despite its dreamy, hypnotic effect, however, the work has its roots in the terrifying reality of a nuclear bomb.

Its creator, artist James Stanford, grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, near where more than 200 above-ground nuclear tests took place in the 1950s and 1960s. His new interpretive photography series, Atomic, draws from both the nuclear landscape of his childhood and his time as a technical illustrator for the US Atomic Energy Commission.

The main image is Nuke Image Circle, 2024. Below, Stanford is shown beside Spectre Fission.

“With the Atomic series, I was trying to show both the spectacle and the horror of the atomic bomb,” he says. A new book, The Atomic Kid, brings together 21 of these pieces, while four feature in a new exhibition at the Atomic Museum in Las Vegas.

Mushroom clouds from bomb tests “enhanced the amazing sunsets and purple mountains of the Mojave Desert” as he grew up, Stanford writes in the book. Three times, atomic tests cracked the windows of his house when he was a child.

The image above is Stanford’s Nuclear Color, 2024.