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 Non-Euclidean structures. These sculptures are built from paper polygons with accordion folding patterns.

Artworks

“Spiral Mountains” are a new series of sculptures built with hexagons. Each mountain peak consists of two non-regular hexagons that gradually increase in size. This gradual growth pattern of the triangles and switching the direction allows the mountains to curve into each other. “Spiral Mountain Lace” features hand-drawn white algorithmically generated lace drawings on a black background. The density of the patterning remains somewhat consistent, because the number of lines increases as the size of the triangles increases.

“Spiral Mountain Net” features black hand-drawn triangular nets on a white background. For this piece, the pattern becomes more sparse as the triangles get larger. The number of lines on each triangle remains the same. As the triangles get larger the spaces between the lines become bigger.