Susan Happersett

Statement

In my art, I explore the aesthetic qualities of mathematics through sequences, series, and mappings. I express my ideas in drawings, sculptures, artist's books, and videos. Recurring themes in my work are the Fibonacci Sequence, Chaos Theory, symmetry, the Cartesian Coordinate System, the Cantor Set, Self Similarity and Fractals. Crucial to me is that all my work is hand-drawn: I design the algorithm and then I execute it by hand. I am the computer. I am currently exploring modular structures. Each module is a combination of two distinct quadrilaterals. These new sculptures are built by sewing together multiple, identical modules, in either linear or curvilinear formations.

Artworks

“Ring of Fire” is one of my new modular sculptures. Inspired by Hyperbolic Geometry, each module consists of a square and a right quadrilateral deltoid. Folded and combined, they form a structure with six vertices. I sewed together eight modules to form a circular 3-dimensional lattice sculpture. The surface pattern is the same on each module and features my algorithmically generated lace drawings. “Ring of Fire” was constructed using only flat planes and straight edges, but the end result is a curvilinear form with a complex topology.