Ruth Millar
1) X to the power of
2) 0
3) 0 to the power of
Elaine Le Corre
2D and 3D threaded works
A series of experimental pieces that explore replacing the original geometric solids
with the aim of creating a 3D version of a mathematical equation, with the use of
text or sequence of chance numbers as the basis for threading.
paper and cotton thread
Gabrielle Hoad
The Luminous Envelope
This photographic series was made in response to Fresnel's Wave Surface, which
describes the propogation of light in an optically biaxal crystal. The crystal's
molecular structure causes light to reflect and retract in predictable ways, and the
university's model offers a 'snapshot' of this wave front as it radiates from the centre.
The model renders the behaviour of light as solid, interlocking plaster objects.
The Luminous Envelope sets out to invert that process by dissolving tangible objects
(cubes, cones, crystals) into zones of light. Techniques used to make the images
incorporate polarisation, a phenomenon employed in the study of crystals.
Felicity Shillingford
Strings and Sequences
Oxidised metal supports with broken strings are how the Martin Schilling string models
look today. Reminiscent of the the string art which proudly hung on our walls in the
1970's these were three dimensional and superior in structure and complexity. They
had their own rhythm and systems that combined to describe a solid form. Naum Garbo
used similar techniques in his constructivist sculptures, making flowing forms using
perspex and fishing line ordering and balancing during a turbulent time in history.
Strings and Sequences are explorations using wire thread, string and sequenced actions
to create patterns or visual maps.
Stephen Lee
Preparing for a Feast
A table is being laid, one figure places a jug, the other is cleaning
up something spilled. Objects strewn across the surface of the
table are gradually being organised. The subject matter references
art made in the Ancient Greek world and depicts the work of two
servants. My drawing is about a way of looking at history where
imagery is interpreted through a process that combines intention
and chance, A sketch of pottery and cutlery initially drawn using
ellipses and perspective on one side of the paper, seeps through
to the reverse side forming a trace.
Iavor Lubomiro
Outsider Maths
Outside Maths is a poser, a fake, a bit of a chameleon. It is my own very personal
response to the plaster cast teaching aids that underpin the exhibition it was created
for. It's about a minor case of imposter syndrome while studying mathematics at the
old Maths Institute nearly 20 years earlier. I came to Oxford from a state school in
Leicestershire and from the start was never quite able to shake off a feeling of not
quite belonging. Unusually, for a maths undergraduate, I had taken A-Levels in art
and literature and after graduation my path quickly returned to art. Now, after two
decades, I find myself at the new Maths Instiute looking at objects, most of which I do
not recognise, but which all carry a familiar sense about them. The work I made for
this unexpected homecoming wears these other objects' colours and grid patterns
and could be taken for an elliptical torus at first glance. It sports a genuine loking label
too, but is obviously a cuckoo. It is not an ellipsoid as the exaggerated label announces.
It is also much larger and clearly not of the same material. Even it's equation is a put on
- its horizontal cross section is composed of four quarter circles with two different radii,
which are co-tangental at the joins and thus make a smooth whole. This is an old trick
used by frame makers to create perfect ovals, which are not in fact ellipses, but rather
sit in the family of French Curves. It is an exaggerated thing, of course, made with a
dollop of nostalgia and a fair amount of self satirising. But Outsider Maths is still
something that speaks the old language a bit, albeit with an accent, so while it may not
belong, it does relate - like an unexpected second cousin at a work picnic.
468 hand-curt laser prints on micron acetate sheets, jade adhesive 403N
Tim Ellis
02. Supported Sphere
Oak, teak, pine, stone, acrylic, metal fixings and wood stain
In response to the solids, I investigated their relationship to early modernist sculpture and the
artists (Gabo, Hepworth and Moore) who first studied and were influenced by these forms.
The solids themselves are characterised by complex sweeping forms, punctuated by straight
lines and angles. Using materials associated with modernism, small unsystematic-sectioned
maquettes, emphasising discord and balance were produced in response.
Kate Terry
Regular Solids
Kate Terry's practice encompasses sculpture, installation and drawing, exploring
the interplay of the hand crafted in relation to repetitious and serial forms and
gestures. Her sculptures consider concerns of weight and presence with direct
emphasis on their physicality, form and colour associations. Terry has made a set
of cast geometric solids that compromise various regular forms including hexagon,
dome, and prism. The sculptures are highly pigmented using both fluorescents and
sherbert-like hues. This arrangement of forms suggests a friction between an art
object and a learning resource.
Bella Easton
The Congregation
These graphite drawings and oil paintings form part of a new series of work
that investigates order and glitch through fabricated landscape. Based on a
large collection of plaster models of surfaces from the Mathematics Institute
in Oxford, Easton resurrects these "illegitimate objects' like buried relics from
the past by arranging them in a theatrically lit setting. The images are further
overlaid with synthesized lens flare to construct ethereal landscapes. A
scratched, disturbed space forms together from fragments, giving clues and
suggestions to the source. Layers of squashed oil paint and drawn marks
begin to form an emerging image. The 'Congregation' series continues her
ongoing interest for chirality where grid and image combine to form symetrical
compositions.
A system of geometry and layering orders repetition and mirroring in a way
that established a connection between images of architectural spaces and the
pattern of the work itself. Easton's work negotiates between the real and the
unknown and isolates or abandons reality and the realtionship between what
may once have seemed ordinary and everyday is now given importance and
permanence. The real and familiar becomes curious and esoteric.
Luke Ralphs
Cubic Surfaces
The collection of models initially appeared to me isolated, like an impenetrable
alphabet. The discovery of the straight lines, incised across the curved surfaces of the
models, was surprising. When viewed from different angles, I imagined these to extend
out, propelled into the surrounding architectural space, their trajectories echoing and
bisecting the building's internal structures and perspectives.
Katrina Blannin
Diamond - Vert Veronese - Clebsch
Materiality and perception are key, but the idea of a visual proposition: a plan worked out
in advance, has become the main thrust of an evolving methodology. Working with a kind
of developing schema and experimental colour systems contradictorily produces
unexpected results. The intention is not to obfuscate but to engage the viewer in visual play.
Rotations, sequences or mirror images with a grid for a stage, rather than a single image,
have generated ideas about movement and the method is often palindromic: a kind of
visual ‘dance’, perhaps a choreographic drawing in paint.
Sally Howkins
Congruent and non-congruent forms
Responding to the geometric models, their complex meaning
and manufacture, I began looking at the shapes, straight
lines and measurements in everyday objects. Looking for
parallels to the collection within these seemingly arbitrary
shapes and designs, I have explored their internal spaces,
dissected their forms, and experimented with tipping points
and points of contact.
Diane Jones-Parry
Legitimate Drawings?
"To draw a line is to have an idea,
ideas become compounded as soon as you make the second line." Richard Serra
Encountering the collection of geometric objects, mysterious, seemingly
solid forms that were really about surfaces, I looked at how and what they
represented. Amidst talk of conics, curves, Cartesian coordinates, the
algebraic equations from which the models are generated, I learned a
ruled surface is swept out by moving a line in space. I explored the way
conic sections figure in physical motion, recording events on a horizontal
plane - drawn lines tracing curves, defining space, depicting movement.
The drawings are relational and stand as themselves while referring to
something other - an intentionally selective and specific form of representation.
Titles: elliptical orbit, parabolic pathways, intersecting the periodic swing,
point/ line/ surface/ fold/ (surface) x4
Annabel Ralphs
‘Bin it’
The Bourbaki quest for purity and rigour in mathematics left no room for
models and diagrams. My work, however, focuses on imperfection and
slippage inherent in realisations of ‘exact’ templates, measure and diagrams.
Brass rule, drawing in clay from beneath the Andrew Wiles Building,
waste-heaps at Portland Stone Quarry.
