Philippe Leblanc
My work reflects my joint vision as both an architect and an artist,
as well as my love for geometrical abstraction.
Mathematics is a constant source of inspiration, but not a goal per
se. The aesthetic and playful aspects of my artwork are always the
final criteria. I am delighted when people with no mathematical
background or supposedly allergic to it are sensitive to my art.
Lately I have been inspired by such famous irrational numbers as Phi,
Pi and the square root of 2, which cost so much work to generations of
mathematicians. As a tribute to their discoveries and calculations, I
imagined representations of the decimals of these numbers in 2D
colored puzzles or 3D architectural models.
The ‘PentaPuzzle Phi 121 Grey’ is a geometric representation of
the golden ratio Φ, a well-known irrational number
(1.61803398875...). In a regular pentagon with sides of length
one, the distance between two opposite points has length Φ.
This pentagonal puzzle is made up of 120 identical isosceles
triangles, arranged in crowns around a pentagon. A symmetrical
pattern in slight relief is created by the extra thickness of half
of the pieces.
The central pentagon stands for the integer 1, while the remaining
pieces represent the first 120 decimals of the number Φ. A shade
of grey is assigned to each number, from white for 1 to black for
0. The reading direction starts from the central piece to the
triangle below, then clockwise.