Description
John Pickering and The Architecture of the Inversion Principle
Texts by George L-Legendre, John Sharp, Chris Wise
John Pickering is a British artist who uses mathematics to produce small, finely wrought scultures brimming with architectonic qualities. From the large body of algebra available to the lover of visual maths, he borrows one equation only.
His chosen equation describes a two-dimensional transformation called inversion, which involves a wholesale reflection of figures about a circle. Pickering methodically applies the rules of inversion to various primitives (such as spheres, cones, cylinders and cross-caps) and explores the striking manifestations of their transformation in space. The aesthetic worth of his sculpture is intrinsically bound up with the process of applying the rules – untypically for an artist, he communicates in detail the steps he has taken to get to the final result. This book explores both process and result – a body of work of sheer beauty and material sophisticatio
