2026 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Leah Wrenn Berman Williams
Artists
Leah Wrenn Berman Williams
Professor of Mathematics
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, Alaska, USA
Statement
I make two-dimensional and three-dimensional art that has a strong degree of symmetry, but less than maximal symmetry --- the symmetry-breaking leads to aesthetically more complicated art. For sculpture, I work in a variety of mediums, from 3D-printed plastic, to cardboard and acrylic, to metal.
Artworks
Two steel polyhedroskelia
3.5 x 9.0 x 3.5 cm
steel
2025
3D printed steel. These two twisting sculptures, made of curving, intertwining ribbons/tubes of metal, remind me of the twisting of Celtic knots and the "triskelion". One has the rotational symmetry of a tetrahedron, and one the rotational symmetry of a cube; in designing these sculptures, I intentionally chose to reduce the possible symmetry of the object to create artistic tension.