Paul Gailiunas
Artists
Statement
I have participated in every Bridges conference since 2000, and exhibited artwork since 2007, usually related to my conference presentation. I am interested in any visually interesting manifestation of mathematics, and have used a variety of media at various times: paper or card models, geometrical drawings, computer images, and I have used mathematically inspired designs in leather bookbindings. I exhibited basketry pieces using madweave in Coimbra (2011) and Enschede (2013) but this is the first time I have used a non-standard structure.
Artworks
Six Möbius Strips
160 x 160 x 160 cm
plastic strapping
2018
This piece is related to Steiner’s Roman Surface, which has the topology of the projective plane, so it must be self-intersecting, and it also has a singularity. The basketry avoids the singularity, and accommodates the self-intersections by not forming a continuous surface. It is a mix of different structures: triaxial weave (with three strand directions), biaxial weave (two strand directions like a convectional fabric), and unwoven sections. The six white strands are Möbius strips, the coloured strands can be seen as a way of labelling them, and the black strands have been added to stabilize the structure.