2023 Bridges Conference Art Exhibition
Anton Bakker
Artists
Statement
As a sculptor creating digital and physical forms, I strive to take the viewer on a journey of truth-discovery by asking them to engage with various perspectives. Using custom-built technology, I create paths by connecting points in space. The curved and polyline paths that I compose are not arbitrary, rather, they are patterns derived from nature’s archetypes. Natural patterns and symmetries also play a key role in present-day technology. For 40 years, I have used technology both in my artistic explorations with my mentor, Koos, and in my business to analyze patterns. I now use technology solely to discover the beauty that hides in the minuscule yet vast world of atomic lattices.
Artworks
This artwork tours 32 steps in the BCC lattice according to path expression “A:-------- B:Aa BB”, beauty filtered for knots (see Bridges paper). The beam has a triangular profile, with a Möbius twist. The image shows three seemingly incompatible perspectives. Optical illusion is a playground for artists (cf. trompe l’oeil). Every artist who depicts a solid, “real” object on a 2-dimensional canvas strives to create the illusion that the object is 3-dimensional. In 3-dimensional space, our eyes and brains supply us with illusions: we see, or think we see, something that is not really there. Only by rotating the sculpture in space, viewing it from many angles, can you discover its true shape and surprising symmetries.