Are we alone in the universe?

A single still painting, 16:9, in oil and powdered graphite on coarse linen. Most of the canvas is a vast, nearly black interval, worked with dense, light-absorbing pigment. At the extreme lower left, the curved edge of Earth enters the frame: a sliver of blue atmosphere, dark ocean, and a rocky tidal shelf seen impossibly close. In a shallow puddle, green microbial films wrinkle around grains of sand. At the extreme upper right, a different world's curved edge enters upside down: pale mineral crust beneath a thick amber atmosphere. Here, in a narrow seep of dark liquid, unfamiliar living membranes form translucent, folded colonies, their edges faintly luminous. They are irregular and visibly growing, not crystals or machinery. Each shore receives its own low, local sunlight; neither light reaches the other. The two inhabited fragments occupy less than a quarter of the image together. Between them, almost unbearable distance. The living matter is painted with intimate, tactile precision; the void has no picturesque nebulae or ornamental stars. No people, spacecraft, symbols, lettering, or words.