Ideas about what the cosmos is made of is an ongoing topic of Dominique's research and investigations. While painting 'Luminous Matter 20,' when she laid down the painterly acrylic underpainting, she was thinking about gestural abstraction. Then, she shifted to consider geometric abstraction, and drew the triangular formations in pencil. Next she pondered the color palette, and selected the vibrant hues of Holbein oils that define the entire series. Eventually she titled it, then read Michael Loewenstein's article on clusters in NASA's 'Imagine the Universe.' In it he states that the universe is made of two basic types of matter... luminous matter, and dark matter. He goes on to describe the luminous matter as see-able because they radiate unfathomably hot X-rays with temperatures of 10-1000 million degrees. Since, Dominique imagines the 'Luminous Matter' paintings as possible snapshots of luminous matter.