Window Art Evokes Patterns of Nature

Allison Svoboda, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Installation, 2013
Vortices, cut and painted paper, 40'x12'

In art history classes, we learn that Renaissance artists made their paintings based on the vision of recreating a scene as if looking out a window, its frame becoming the defining edges from which to compose the painting. They created aerial and linear perspective to show how things look in the distance from that point of view.

Artists are no longer tied to those constrictions of creating illusions, so what about turning the windows into art?  There's some artists who've done exactly that, while at the same time evoking and imitating patterns of nature and the weather.  Here's a few good examples.

Allison Svoboda is a paper artist is Chicago.  Her sophisticated Vortices were a 40' x 12" installation exhibited at the Urban Museum of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, last year.

  
 Organic paper constructions ebb and flow, reminding us of the elements.  We can think of the must beautiful aspects of rain and snow when looking out and about her handmade constructions. There's white, gray, black and blue, all the colors evocative of weather phenomena and shapes to express its temperamental nature. Svoboda explains that it is the enormous energies of nature which inspire her.  "The theory of fractal geometry; infinite layers of self-similar shapes repeated in every living thing, hold an endless fascination for me."


Light flows inside Svoboda's window art, but the papers give nuances of shade, and great contrast when hitting against blue skies.  There's also wonderful floor patterns created from light and shadow.  Of course, these patterns shift and change as the day goes on.  Paper is the medium.  I'm guessing that loads of other materials could be used as creatively.

Vortices are natural occurring whirlpools in nature. Another piece of window art I saw imitates a calmer quality of nature.  When on a trip to Healdsburg, California, an amazing work of environmental art had recently been made for the Spoon Bar, the restaurant at H2Hotel.  Northern California artist Ned Kahn made a sculptural installation for the site, a magical window vista called Spoonfall. 

Upon further inspection and discovery, small streams of  water were falling down a vertical grid interspersed with spoons. As the spoons swung up and down, water landed from one spoon to the next.  Everything sparkled, especially as water hit metal and captured reflections of light.  The trickling flow of water made the sounds very soothing and comforting, calming an atmosphere that could have become too noisy.

As Kahn says, he see patterns which enhance our perception of natural phenomena.  He typically makes art works which incorporate water, fog, wind and/or light and fire, i.e. elements of nature. His works include vortices, too.   Kahn has always been fascinated with the confluence of art and science. 

Recreating different kinds of movements and flows make us more keenly aware of the patterns in nature.  In that way, Svoboda and Kahn are much alike, but their materials---simple paper for Svoboda, water and metal for Kahn---could not be more different.  These artists make us see and understand our world so much better. 

Ned Kahn, Spoonfall, 2010, Spoon Bar Restaurant at the H2Hotel, Healdsburg, CA

The Elemental Garden: Where Art and Science Meet

Never having studied High School Chemistry, I am fascinated by how sculptor Rebecca Kamen has taken the elemental table to create a wondrous work of art. The beautiful floating universe of Divining Nature: The Elemental Garden--recently shown at Greater Reston Area Arts Center (GRACE)--is based on the formulas of 83 elements in chemistry. Its amazing that an artist can transform factual information into visual poetry with a lightweight, swirling rhythm of white flowers.



According to Kamen, who teaches art at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, she had the inspiration upon returning home from Chile. After 2 years of research, study and contemplation, she built 3-dimensional flowers based upon the orbital patterns of each atom of all 83 elements in nature, using Mylar to form the petals and thin fiberglass rods to hold each flower together. The 83 flowers vary in size, with the simplest elements being smallest and the most complex appearing larger. The infinite variety of shapes is like the varieties possible in snowflakes; their whiteness and uniformity of material connect them, but individually they are quite different.



One could walk in the garden and feel a mystical sensation in the arrangement of flowers, as intriguing as the "floral arrangement" of each single element. After awhile I discovered that the atomic flowers were installed in a pattern based upon Fibonacci's sequence. Medieval writer Leonardo Fibonacci and ancient Indian mathematicians had discovered the divine proportion present in nature. This mystical phenomenon explains the spirals we see in nature: the bottom of a pine cone, the spirals of shells and the interior of sunflowers among other things. Greeks also created this pattern in the "golden section" which defines the measured harmony of their architecture. Kamen wanted to replicate this beauty found in nature and enlisted the help of an architect, Alick Dearie, to create the 3-D spatial arrangement.



Kamen likened her flowers to the pagodas she had seen in Burma. However, there is an even more interesting, interdisciplinary connection. Research on the Internet brought Kamen to a musician, Susan Alexjander of Portland, OR, who composes music derived from Larmor Frequencies (radio waves)emitted from the nuclei of atoms and translated into tone. Alexjander collaborated, also, and her sound sequences were included with the installation. Putting music and art together with science mirrors the universe and it is pure pleasure to experience this mystery of creation.



This installation is now in storage, but hopefully it will be exhibited again during the International Year of Chemistry, 2011. In the meantime, there are few videos online that can be found on youtube searching the artist's name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcfuORD5oUw