tom johnson
Artists
Statement
Since most current mathematical art is computer graphics, it may be good to have some homemade hand drawn works in the exhibition, and I am proud to submit one or two. My training is neither in art nor in mathematics, but rather in music and music theory. I began doing drawings with numbers as a means of finding musical structures for my compositions, but in many cases I consider the drawings valid works of art, even when they did not lead to good musical compositions
Artworks
seven choose three
20 inches by 26 (50 cm x 65 cm)
ink on paper
2008
triplets connected when only one number is different.
I am a composer, and I do such drawings in seeking musical structures.
Many of my drawings with numbers (2007-2014) have been exhibited and about a hundred of them are included in a recent book called "Looking at Numbers," written in collaboration with mathematician Franck Jedrzewejewski and published in 2013 by Springer Verlag/Birkhäuser.
"Seven choose Three" is self explanatory. (12,3,2) is derived from a block design or combinatorial design with 12 elements in sub-groups of three, where each pair of numbers occurs together two times.