Gabriele Meyer
Artist Statement
Mathematical shapes, the shadows they throw, and that are formed on
them, have always fascinated me greatly. Sometimes you can find them
in nature, in sea creatures such as shells, snails and algae and also
in some leaves. So first I tried to paint and linoprint images of
them. Now I create them via crocheting. I found a new technique,
whereby I crochet around shaped plastic line. This makes the crochet
surface hold its curved shape. It is an intermediate technique between
crocheting and basket making.
Using different crochet techniques one can create solid surfaces or
those with holes. Light shining at these different textures can create
beautiful effects.
The surfaces are hyperbolic, which means that locally near any point
the surface will look like a saddle. This makes the hyperbolic surface
very different from a flat or a spherical one: a flat surface looks
like a piece of paper everywhere. A spherical surface looks locally
curved like the earth. The hyperbolic plane comes in two views, one as
a disk with wavy perimeter, and the other one as a long band with
waviness on one side. I crochet both.
After seeing them created by computer graphics, it’s been an amazing
experience to be able to make these shapes come into being.
this is a hyperbolic surface shaped like a blossom. The blossom part is a hyperbolic disk. It extends to the stem, which would be a handle extending to infinity.
This is a realization of the hyperbolic Poincare disk.
The picture is by Catherine Kutka of the Nohr Gallery in
Platteville, WI