Brass, Copper, nylon cord.
"Repeat Lattice" 2013
On display at "Casting Call" Exhibition held at POP@afg Gallery, South Brisbane, 10th January - 24th January, 2013:
Work in Progress photos: Coming Soon
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“Repeat Lattice”
At the most basic explanation, fractals are patterns that are created using mathematical formulas that strictly control and guarantee their repetitive shape. True fractal patterns go on indefinitely, but there are also commonly occurring fractal patterns that we see every day, informally known as incomplete or pseudo fractals, that include structures such as the growth patterns of trees, formation patterns of ice crystals, the structure of a shell or a lightning bolt and the contours of a coastline. The important thing to note is that the patterns are forever becoming more and more intricate the closer they are viewed. For this project I made 3 pendants, each one representative of one of nature’s ‘incomplete’ fractal patterns. Crystal systems and their repetitive growth pattern structures, specifically within Vivianite, Tourmaline and Galena. Tourmaline is usually prismatic and vertically striated, that is, like long columns with a hexagonal base and with vertical striations that look like gouged out lines. Its crystal system is called hexagonal or a hexagonal prism. Vivianite is monoclinic, that is, it’s a rectangular prism with a parallelogram as its base. Galena grows in an isometric system which is basically a cube or cubic system. In creating each piece, I tried to keep as many aspects repetitive as I could manage; 3 pendants of similar design and materials, the shapes within each pendant, the repetitive use of the particular metals, the repeated texturing of the single brass layer in each piece and the number of layers of metal per each piece. To create each pendant, the basic shapes were sketched then redrawn in Illustrator as vector shapes where I separated each layer of the pendant creating a sort of ‘exploding diagram’ of the piece. The templates were printed, glued to the sheet metals, textured, beaten to flatten and the shapes cut out of the metal and arranged for sweat (flat area) soldering in order of largest to smallest. The pendants were then cleaned up, polished and finished with black silk cord and handmade copper and brass wire hooks. Through this project, I learned that repetition is a powerful way to drive a point across, to make a statement and to create cohesion in a body of works. It can be used to create uniformity or to make the mundane appear sacred or more valuable. Repetition is also a powerful visual tool to show how the small makes an integral part of the greater whole; how each repeat becomes a part of a larger, infinite picture - symbol of infinity - like the ever expanding fractal that shows the same pattern repeated forever. |