David Swart is a visual artist / photographer that creates mathematical artwork. He prefer to "grow his own" software which allows him the flexibility to explore mathematical ideas in his own way.
David's goal is to create visual puzzles that demonstrate the fascinating aspects of themes that interest him, including but not limited to spherical geometry, spherical imagery, and their projections.
This year David is happy to submit some joint work with his son Evan Swart.
Evan, 8, is passionate about sketching and especially enjoys drawing in pencil, pencil crayon and pen.
Artworks
Frog
42 x 30 cm
Woodcut in blue and black printed from two blocks
2015
Depicted is a blue poison dart frog. The frog's design is based on a pattern that can be cut out and assembled into an approximately spherical papercraft globe. The spots on the frog serve as the continents and islands of the earth.
This is joint work with Evan Swart.
Gilbert Two World Globe
44 x 24 x 24 cm
Decoupage on a plastic sphere, mounted on an acquired globe stand.
2015
Martin Gardner wrote about a globe by Edgar N. Gilbert which featured two copies of the world's continents, conformally mapped onto one sphere. He relates that Gilbert's visitors would often fail to see anything "wrong" with it. Scholar Carlos Furuti has some doubts about this anecdote wondering if people are generally that unfamiliar with the proportions of the globe.
The only thing to do is to make one so we can decide for ourselves.
Starting with geographical data (Tom Patterson's Natural Earth III), I shrunk two copies of the Mercator projection by half, placed them side by side, and applied the inverse Mercator projection back onto the sphere.
Colors, sea monsters, and other map elements were then added for style.
Woven Papercraft Globe.
8 x 8 x 8 cm
Printed paper.
2015
This work is inspired by recent woven papercraft spheres by Philip Chapman, by the rattan balls used in Sepak Takraw (kick-volleyball), and by the arrangement of geodesic panel boundaries on a UEFA Champion's League soccer ball.
Each of these bands were thickened and their edges curved outwards to form locking mechanisms similar to Chris K. Palmer's SlideTabs. The final ball uses no tape, or fasteners, and the ends of each paper strip are merely tucked in at their ends.
Printing the appropriate details onto each band was a matter of finding the 10 rotations which move each geodesic to the equator, and then to print out the rotated earth imagery using a cylindrical projection.
