Mehrdad Garousi

Freelance fractal artist, painter and photographer
Hamadan, Iran

There are diverse types of knots and various ways of knotting in constructing complex and eye catching works of art. I found my own way of working with them. Basically, I provide a polyhedron and a simple pattern of a few interwoven knots. Then, I put same groups of knots similarly on the vertices or faces of the polyhedron. All of the knots on different vertices or faces must be moved and adjusted altogether so that they intertwine with their neighbors and provide a big chain of knots in the form of an apparent sphere. Afterwards, we must find our desirable point of view through which an appropriate symmetry appears.
Here, in following works, I have exploited icosahedrons and trefoil knots of which different groups are placed on the vertices of the icosahedrons. Although, my initial 3D polyhedrons in all following works are icosahedrons, due to the pentagonal arrangement of trefoil knots, they look icosidodecahedrons and even dodecahedrons.

Knots 2
Knots 2
24" x 24"
Digital art print
2010

By staring at this five-fold rotational symmetric work, one can find different pentagons composed of ambient and particular parts of trefoil knots. The big central circle surrounding the internal pentagons is the special property of this piece. It must be paid attention that the underlying knots, usually with darker colors, contributing in the symmetry, actually belong to the backside of the icosahedron and their distance to the foreside ones is equal to the diameter of the big flat-looking medallion we are looking at. The bizarre symmetry yielded through the curves, the type of lighting, and our perpendicular eyesight are the main reasons of destroying perspective in the eyes of the viewer as if he would face a completely flattened disc.
In this work and following ones, none of the knots touch each other. They do act like chains.

Knots 3
Knots 3
24" x 24"
Digital art print
2010

Another five-fold rotational symmetric and flat-looking icosahedron of which significant property is the big five-point lotus is displayed on the basis of the central pentagon. This work comprises corps of a larger number of trefoil knots which do not touch each other at any point.

Knitted Pearls
Knitted Pearls
24" x 24"
Digital art print
2009

Apart from the different pattern and the perfect central lotus, the further distinction of this work from others is the existence of strung pearls. These pearls being placed similarly at certain points of every knot have created a new symmetry with a different pattern.