Art Objects

I consider myself a conceptual explorer. I devise, plan and carry out expeditions to various themes or concept-worlds and my artworks serve as the (highly subjective) field reports and charts from those expeditions. For example, my most recent expedition to Numerosphere, the world of numbers, has produced various charts in metal, wood and crystal recording and celebrating Riemann’s zeta function, number spirals putting prime numbers in their rightful place as the ordering system for all numbers, and partially random representations of the mathematical constant e.

I am always an outsider in my explorations, a status that I have grown to cherish. I do not pretend or promise to understand and explain these worlds as a native or specialist might but rather I offer my own perspectives and observations as an inquisitive admirer of them and hope by doing so to pique the curiosity and interest of others too.

Art doesn’t pay my bills but creativity is the lifeblood of my professional practice in innovation strategy as it is of my personal practice as conceptual explorer. While it is accepted wisdom to maintain a work-life distinction and balance I actually prefer to let the two blend together and believe that my professional work benefits from the time I spend in exploration mode and vice-versa.

Second, I make little distinction or value judgement between various forms of creativity, respecting the creativity of mathematicians and scientists (and engineers, technologists etc.) as much as of artists and designers of all kinds. The inventions and innovations of chefs and choreographers alike inform my frameworks and methods. This is not only a point of view but a practice for me. I have chosen to incorporate STEM in both my personal and professional domains:

• Numerosphere, my expedition to the world of numbers, displayed at the Unicorn café in Evanston from May-July 2015 (see also the images of my work)

• Co-founder member of The Institute of Breaking, an exploratory forum between physicists at the University of Chicago (notably “macro” particle physicist Heinrich Jaeger) and artists at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

• Development of a STEM education strategy for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;

• Early stage design of STEM education in USA and internationally

• Facilitating a STEM/FABLAB workshop at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

• Exhibits Advisory Committee Member, Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

• Runner-up, Artist in Residence, Fermilab

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my work.