Makoto Nakamura

Statement

For the four decades, I have been creating a variety of tessellation works to uncover the potential of tessellation design established by M. C. Escher as an artistic technique. My recent focuses are on creating random puzzles consisting of various pieces with animal motifs familiar to non-specialists in geometry. Such puzzles could contribute intuitive understanding of profound nature of randomness through playing to solve them. Challenges to create the puzzles are robustness on the wall enough for players to repeatedly in museums. In this artwork, Ethylene Vinyl Acetate(EVA) is utilized because of its beneficial features such as lightweight, soft sensory and ease of laser cutting.

Artworks

Ferrite magnets on back side of puzzle pieces allow players random tiling on the wide wall. The image is a part of permanent collection at Hamagin Space Science Center at Yokohama city.

This random puzzle consist of 10 motifs cats, dogs, birds, another birds, sea lions, squirrels, rabbits, dolphins, mice, fish. Players can repeatedly try different arrangements of tiles each time they try, and explore the hidden rule why the random tiling is possible on the plane.