Natura Mathematica
April 6, 2017 ̶ May 28, 2017
Curator: Maddy Rosenberg
The beauty of pure mathematics is at the essence of all in nature. Not only is it the language of science, it is the basis of the systems behind everything we see- proportion, symmetry, sequences, repetition, fractals, patterns. Woven into our everyday surroundings, often only discernable to the practiced eye, mathematics is at the core of the natural world and the foundation of imagined ones. It is only natural that artists find it an irresistible subject.
The collaborative father and son duo of Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine find a new challenge with the mathematics of folding in the Fibonacci double spiral pattern of the sunflower. The video work of Lorin Roser has an intrinsic architecture to it, a golden spiral floating in space. Martha Willette Lewis crushes paper in a multi-plane Brane; Simona Soare evolves her own world from the geometry at the base of this one. The metal scraps in Alan Rosner‘s visually interpreted “landscapes” are described by the same fractals that create the digital landscapes of Gerhard Mantz‘s computer generated nature.
The meticulous branch botanicals of Beverly K. Duncan become a dance of lines, while Cynthia Back reduces the forest to its linear movement. With Rachael Wren, we are encouraged to see the positive and negative in the abstract. The embroidered lines of Robyn Ellenbogen‘s bamboo slip books resonate with the patterning within, as Kathy Strauss embroiders mathematical calculations in an artful lab notebook. Eva Mantell makes objects out of the straws of life.
Caroline Blum achieves a netted reduction of a sea creature shaped through mathematical equations, whereas Susan Happersett finds the tangled nerve systems in the spine of a book. Amber Heaton knits a web as unique as any spider’s, while Jeanne Heifetz plays with Plateau’s laws in her cell-like drawings. Steven Gawoski’s minutely rendered explorations uncover hidden geometries. The delicacy of Gerhild Ebel‘s lacelike paper-cuts conform to the golden ratio, though for Helena Kauppila, mathematics is second nature in her work.
The soothing tones that emanate from the wood boxes of MJ Caselden are based on the same abstract concepts that define the material world. The nature of Geraldine Ondrizek is of a very human kind, biologically measuring of twin beings. C Bangs may paint rings around the tree of life, but Sarah Stengle finds curves within a spiritual garden.
No matter how these artists approach the world, the mathematics of their work powerfully echoes throughout the universe.
