Rediscover fire, reinvent the wheel

Iterating asymptotically toward an elusive ideal is a key element of my practice. Maybe I’m taking the man too literally.

'Most things in the world are absolute in terms of taking someone's word for it. For example, rulers. But if you yourself made a sphere, you could never know if it was one. That fascinates me. Nobody will know it. It cannot be proven, so long as you avoid instruments. If I made a sphere and asked you, "Is it a perfect sphere?" you would answer, "How should I know?" I could insist that it looks like a perfect sphere. But if you looked at it, after a while you would say, " I think it's a bit flat over here." That's what fascinates me - to make something I can never be sure of, and no one else can either. I will never know, and no one else will ever know.'

 Willem de Kooning, from an interview with Harold Rosenberg, first published in Art News, vol. 71, no. 5. September 1972, pp. 54 - 59

Taking it a step further, the amount of information necessary to describe a perfect circle is substantially less than the information needed to describe an imperfect one. Assymetry is evidence that something else is happening outside of just the simple math. Maybe that’s just more math, but Goedel’s incompleteness theorems leave the question open. That the universe is capable of making imperfect circles is way more impressive and mysterious than its ability to create perfect ones.

36”x36”
acrylic on canvas
available

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