Ariel Elkin

Statement

I build systems for producing geometric objects. The work begins in custom parametric software, where tilings become fields of possible forms, colours, and material outcomes. I move through these fields by adjusting parameters, testing configurations, and looking for the point where the structure becomes visually clear. Colour reveals hidden relations inside the tiling, while the ceramic glaze catalogue gives each decision a material limit and a physical consequence. Each piece is the result of searching through mathematical possibility until geometry, colour, and surface settle into a precise visual object.

Artworks

A random-looking arrangement of dominoes can contain a hidden large-scale order. This work begins with the height function from dimer theory, which assigns values across a perfect matching of the grid. At the local scale the dominoes appear irregular, while the accumulated height values form broad contour-like regions. I translate those bands into ceramic glazes chosen from a constrained palette, making colour a way to read the structure of the matching. The stochastic process remains present in the surface, with its internal coherence carried into physical ceramic through colour, geometry, and glaze.

The pinwheel tiling interested me because it produces motion from a strict construction rule. A single right triangle is repeatedly subdivided, generating a field of similar shapes that appear at many scales and orientations. I work from one dense patch of that infinite system, then use crop, colour, scale, grout, and ceramic surface to make its internal movement physically present. The mathematics gives the structure its precision, and the material decisions determine how that structure is seen. This result fixes a fragment of the tiling’s swirling order in cut tile.