Francine Champagne

Artist
Vancouver Island BC

There are not that many women that strive for excellence in this field of tessellations. David Bailey lists about 115 men and only 9 women worldwide consistently creating tessellations. I was never hesitant to enter any male-dominated field of work, having spent time as a woodworker, a wood carver, a web programmer and multimedia artist.
Since the arrival of tablets and apps, my body of work has exploded.
I believe I have entered the MCE garden, wandered, and wondered. Explored. Stretched the possibilities and the rules of symmetry, sketched the potentials, and raised my eyebrows at the graphic results. My main purpose is to make you tilt your head, while looking at these tessellations. Hopefully, a small aha and a smile.
Francine

Ollie and Daughter
Ollie and Daughter
40 x 50 cm
Giclée print
2020

This Tortoise Tessellation was created in symmetry group Pg, two parallel and horizontal glide reflections. I am still amazed at what can pop-up as subjects when sketching these shapes. My influences are M. C. Escher, geometry and European comic books. I like to tessellate pertinent topics, current events. The tortoise might be a reflection of the speed of the 2020 economy. I am attempting more and more to make it easier for the viewer to identify the shapes, the characters within, here a single extract of Ollie and his daughter. Cheers (an anagram of Escher)