2021 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Cynthia Fisher
Artists
Cynthia Fisher
ARTIST
CHARLEMONT, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
Statement
My abstract mosaics stem from reflections on a variety of themes, the natural world and science and math concepts being favorites. I begin with lots of pondering, on what I want to create, why, and how will I do so, with material choices and andamento. This term, inherent to the mosaic art form, refers to the visual flow and direction produced by the placement of rows of tesserae. My favorite part of the process is when preparation is complete, the mosaic pieces are in hand and I begin to work intuitively, viscerally responding to the materials and how they come together.
Artworks
Math Chronicle Triptych
45 x 135 x 1 cm
mosaic; stained glass, pottery shards, marble, vitreous glass
2020
Creating Math Chronicle Triptych involved a lot of on-line research on developments in math over time - from the perspective of a humble non-math ARTIST. A few inclusions - panel 1 has math runes, the Pythagorean Theorem, 2 views of a pyramid, Mayan numbers; panel 2, math symbols - pi, square root, Isaac Newton’s ‘Passage of Waves through a hole’ formula; Gauss’17 sided polygon, and a parabola formula by Omar Khayyam. In Panel 3, Ricci Flow on a 2-D manifold (wikipedia) and a variety of doodles and mathematical explorations by Maryam Mirzakhani. The mosaic medium defines my artistic process and I believe lends itself well to the depiction of math principals.