Proxima Centauri, filament, magnet, 12.47 x 15.09 x 6.30 cm True friends are like stars. You can only recognize them when it is dark around you. -Bob Marley
By pairing geometry we don’t completely understand with unfamiliar colours and irregular polygons, an idea becomes accessible on an international level through the phenomenon one might call aesthetics, whether you speak Mandarin, or Swedish.
Sol, red filament, magnet, 12.07 x 12.15 x 11.95 cm Sol is the first work in a series of three dimensional wall works called 100 Closest Stars, the result of a spatial analysis in Python, of an open source astronomical dataset for the purpose of making art.
Gl 752, cyan filament, magnet, 17.6 x 11.28 x 16.43 cm ‘The world is dying because we were dead to it’s astonishments.’ -Joy Williams, Harrow (Knopf: 2022)
Lacaille, #18 of 100 Closest Stars, 9.53 x 11.14 x 8.06 cm. A deep pink filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA ‘Welcome here from outer space, The Milky Way is still in your eyes’ -The Pretenders
GJ 1111, #24 of 100 Closest Stars, 15.67 x 10.18 x 8.99 cm. An even deeper pink filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA Because stars are supposed to be unreachable. -Peter (The Power of the Dog: 2021)
Gl 588 #96 of 100 Closest Stars, 15 x 14.1 x 10.2 cm. A royal blue filament, Rare earth magnet, spatial star data From NASA. Blue has no dimensions. It is beyond dimensions. -Yves Klein
GI 729, #12 of 100 Closest Stars, 14,98 x 11.30 x 9.93 cm. A clear blue filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA. No two objects in the series are the same; the geometry begins with points sprinkled on a visual field, and ends with unique 3 dimensional volumes that come from a spatial analysis called Voronoi.
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Alpha Centauri, #3 of 100 Closest Stars, 12.37 x 19.58 x 6.30 cm. A dark green filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA. “Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language) but the little ones still wonder”. -J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan: 1904)
Eta Cassiopeiae, #100 of 100 Closest Stars, 7.5 x 6.85 4.75 cm. A lavender filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA. The name of each star is engraved on the back of each object along with a number representing its place within the series of one hundred, for cataloguing purposes.
Epsilon Eradani, #14 of 100 Closest Stars, 13.97 x 19.38 x 10.65 cm. A silvery grey filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data From NASA. “A person, being of cosmic origin, can be at one with a star”. -Mei-mei Bressenbrugge (A Treatise on Stars, New Directions: 2021)
GL 15b, #23 of 100 Closest Stars, 14.2 x 22.5 x 10.4 cm. “Nature is beautiful in that it appears to say more than it is. To wrest this more from that more’s contingency, to gain control of its’ semblance as semblance and negate it as unreal, that is the idea of art.’ -Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (1971)
GI 244b, #10 of 100 Closest Stars, 11.08 x 17.91 ex 8.47 cm. A blue translucent filament, magnetic hardware,astronomical data from NASA. “So serial thinking is something that’s come into our consciousness and will be there forever: it’s relativity and nothing else. It just says: Use all the components of any given number of elements, don’t leave out individual elements, use them all with equal importance and try to find an equidistant scale so that certain steps are no larger than others. It’s a spiritual and democratic attitude toward the world.” -Karlheinz Stockhausen
GI 447, #15 of 100 Closest Stars, 11.73 x 15.29 x 10.28 cm. A clear blue filament, Magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA. “It does not prevent me from having a terrible need of, shall I say the word -of religion- then I go outside in the night to paint to stars.” -Vincent Van Gogh (Arles: September 1888) in a letter to his brother Theo.
GI 905, #13 of 100 Closest Stars, 12.47 x 14.04 x 11.04 cm. A clear blue filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA. Translucent filament allows us to see the internal honeycomb structure within each sculpture. Changes in the familiar hexagonal pattern are defined by the planes that define the unique geometry of each form.
Sirius, #11 of 100 Closest Stars, 14.56 x 17.60 x 14.58 cm. A copper filament, magnetic hardware, astronomical data from NASA. This is Sirius, eleventh in the list of 100 Closest Stars, made with filament in a namesake colour that contains particles of bronze. Pairs well with vivid and pastels.
Cygni B, #20 of 100 Closest Stars, 12 x 12.1 x 11.9 cm. Mauve pastel filament, magnetic hardware From NASA. “Mauve? Mauve is just pink trying to be purple.” -James Whistler
Groombridge, #60 of 100 Closest Stars. A deep fluroescent pink filament, astronomical date from NASA. Magnetic hardware. Designed in New York. Made in Canada.
GL 234b, #34 of 100 Closest Stars, 16.7 x 11.8 x 6.6 cm Yellow filament, astronomical date from NASA, magnetic hardware. ‘What a horrible thing yellow is.‘ -Edgar Degas
GL 1005, #73 of 100 Closest Stars, 5.2 x 5.9 x 3.5 in (13.25 x 15.25 x 8.94 cm). Pastel yellow filament, magnetic mountCold hand on my shoulder. A star begins to beam. That’s when you show me. Your souvenir from a dream. -Tom Verlaine
Hip 114110, #52 of 100 Closest Stars, 4.9 x 4.1 x 2 in (12.48 x 10.52 x 5.03 cm). Candy red filament, open source data from NASA, magnetic mount. “Two feet of red is red but five feet of red is redder.” -Barnett Newman