Anna Ursyn

Professor. Computer Graphics / Digital Media Area Head
University of Northern Colorado
Colorado

Starkflake - The King of Shapes

A triangle rules, as it has a power to create any other shape:
– a circle
– a rectangle
– a square
– an octagon
– a parallelogram
– a dodecagon
– a trapezoid

or any form:
- a sphere
- a cube
- a cuboid
- a cone
- a toroid
- a cylinder
- a pyramid
- a square based pyramid
- a triangular based pyramid
- a triangular prism
- a hexagonal prism
- a box
- and all polytopes,

and it can even stand for itself.

Starkflake - The King of Shapes
Starkflake - The King of Shapes
29 x 48 x 2 cm
Archival print. 2 panels: an artwork and the corresponding poem.
2018

This is about a transition from 3D to 2D and back. Geometric is juxtaposed with organic. Mathematics can be seen as a way of describing Nature. The triangle is depicted as a king of shapes as it can generate most shapes and forms.
A set of glass triangles forming mathematical structure is juxtaposed with organic-geometric set of different snowflakes. Snow crystals were photographed by Wilson Alwyn "Snowflake" Bentley,. At the beginning of photography he captured over 5000 snow crystals as glass-plate photomicrographs with an early camera he adjusted. He said no two snowflakes were alike and called them: "tiny miracles of beauty" and "ice flowers." The snowflakes were created in Adobe Illustrator. One can find many triangles in crystals.