Topics: Is the universe infinite? Artist Emma Fielden asks this very question

Don't blow a gasket thinking about it, but go check out Emma Fielden's new exhibition, An Immeasurable Distance, at The Lock-Up gallery in Newcastle.

The exhibition, which opens on Saturday, explores the nature of infinity, the universe and humanity's place in it.

It began with the idea that pondering infinity might help human minds "reach out beyond the boundaries of a confined space".

Emma said the exhibition was a meeting point of her examination of infinity and The Lock-Up's architectural history as a prison - a place of confinement.

"There are seven old cells at The Lock-Up, some of them barely large enough for a single person. The space was truly designed to confine, both physically and mentally."

The idea of the exhibition, devised with gallery director Jessi England, was to "transcend and lighten the historical context of the space".

Emma said infinity was a difficult concept to grasp because "human experience is essentially a finite one".

"It's a very natural human trait to ponder the universe and its scale, and wonder about our place in it."

Contemplating infinity and the universe can be as "simple as staring at the stars or out to sea, or closing one's eyes".

"We can imagine the earliest humans looking to the skies in awe and wonder," she said.

Infinity was a way of thinking about the "scale of things at their most grand and their most minute".

"On one hand we might think of infinity as the largest counting number, but we can always add to that - the number keeps getting larger. We can think in this way in terms of space, too.

"On the other hand, we have the infinitesimal. Take, for example, a line that measures one metre. Cut that line in half, then cut those two halves in half again and continue this process forever."

Theoretically, the pieces keep getting smaller but never disappear.

"They never reach zero. This is infinite divisibility. The Greek philosopher Zeno conveyed the idea in his 450 BC paradox, Achilles and the tortoise," she said.

So is the universe infinite or finite? Scientists don't know, but it's a question that they continue to explore and agonise over.

"I don't know if we'll ever have an answer," Emma said.

Throughout history, humankind has contemplated the universe and sought to comprehend it with various levels of success. Religion, philosophy, science and the arts have all had a go.

"My role as an artist isn't really to come up with answers. I think about questions like this one, like any human might, and create artworks that are essentially meditations. Does an artwork have to present an answer? I don't think so."

Emma perceives humanity to be "equal to everything else in the universe".

"I believe we are no more or less important than all the other stuff of the universe - the bird flying across the sky, the mountain range, stones on a beach, a far reaching star," she said.

The exhibition opens on Saturday at 5.30pm. It runs until October 6.

Are you up for a journey that stretches back "to the dawn of time and ends up in a blissful cosmos where anything is possible?"

Then go check out Concepto, the latest exhibition at The All Story gallery and store at Wickham.

It's been described as an "eye-popping series of paintings and drawings" that tells the story of how art is made by inhabiting worlds of imagination.

"I just wanted to build an environment that I feel comfortable in, so I reverse-engineered that into Concepto," artist Neil 'Pipes' McCann said.

The exhibition is about his "invented universe" and the system he used to create it. His method of working enables creative freedom and provides a way to deal with the anxiety of being an artist.

He's dismantled the quantum mechanics of making art and rebuilt them into a "funny, euphoric and unravelling psychedelic experience".

It's his own cosmic version of Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Sound like quite a trip.