In this watercolor and ink drawing, the artist depicts Napoleonic War soldiers who are “unstuck in time” while disintegrating as they time-travel around the universe. The colorful costumes and the prideful poses in which these soldiers are historically shown inspired the artist to create his growing cast of buffoonish and sinister rogues.

Astley’s watercolor and pen drawings of Napoleonic Era Soldiers (or “time travelers,” as he thinks of them) come out of his series of paintings called “Seven Years Below,” in which historical characters get lifted out of a specific time and place and can move freely around the time-space grid. Though the soldiers stand in a raffishly elegant manner, their time travels appear to have taken a toll on them, as they seem on the verge of disintegrating both physically and mentally.

Christopher Astley’s art practice has always centered on questions concerning the underlying nature of reality. The relationship of time and space and, more recently, the codes that pervade and describe the universe have propelled his work into strange new territories.