Theo Schaad

Statement

I have spent decades on 2D quasiperiodic patterns and had two of my art pieces on display at Bridges 2022. I recently delved into 3D patterning. I was trying to create a finite sculpture, possibly a torus, with few pieces but enough complexity to make it interesting. In part, I was inspired by a sculpture of Melle Stoel at Bridges 2022 which was built from identical polyhedrons, and a sculpture called Black Sun by Isamo Noguchi (a torus with a nine-foot diameter). I also learned recently that toruses were worn as head dresses during the Italian Renaissance. I was quite intrigued to follow in the footsteps of Paolo Uccello and Leonardo da Vinci over five hundred years later (ref: The Mazzocchio Perspective, Kenneth Brecher, Bridges 2011).

Artworks

Broken Symmetry is a toroidal polyhedron (a many-sided ring-like structure). It consists of eight identical unit cells, or pods, that are joined in a near four-fold pattern. The symmetry is obvious as seen axially from a distance. But the pods do not meet at the end and the symmetry is broken. The pods themselves are dodecahedrons with mirror and three-fold symmetries. They each contain six squares and six isosceles triangles with edges in the ratio 1:1:2/sqrt(3). Polyhedrons with regular squares and triangles are classified as Johnson Solids, but these pods are apparently unnamed. Warm and cool colors were chosen for the two faces of the torus with bolder colors for some of the triangles.