ALLEN HIRSH
[CHEVY CHASE]
New Directions in Painting Through Mathematics
Most mathematically produced paintings paint mathematics, e.g. fractal art. This can be justified in light of the famous essay "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" by the Nobel Laureate physicist Eugene Wigner in which he asserted that the ability to uncover heretofore unknown properties of the physical universe by manipulation of symbols is a profound mystery. However, as fine art, painting mathematics is a niche. I have crafted a generative mathematical system to create art with the freedom and emotional depth of manual art. To demonstrate this I will compare some of my work to the famous flow painting Bagdad by Gerhard Richter. Richter creates these paintings on a flat horizontal painting surface. He first pours paints of various colors on the surface. He then pushes the paints with a sponge. Finally, he affixes a pane of glass over the painted surface causing the paint to briefly diffuse in an uncontrolled manner. Using the sponge is a major relinquishing of control by an artist renowned for his talent as a representational painter and the final step is a total loss of control. I compare this to my “neoflow” art. Using several flow type pieces created with my system I will describe extensions of Richter’s method allowing elements of complex symmetry to be seamlessly introduced into the pseudo-random patterns of standard flow and how those elements can be “re-randomized” to achieve a layered esthetic unavailable to the manual process. From there I will segue into explorations of variations on other prominent themes of modern art, drawing on works from Chuck Close, Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Marc Chagall and Gene Davis. In summary, the system allows significant creative expansions of many modern artistic themes-a clear example of a contribution to modern painting.
Allen Hirsh is a practicing biophysicist. He received a BS in biology from The California Institute of Technology, left a neurophysiology program at Columbia University sans degree and received a PhD in plant stress physiology from the University of Maryland at College Park. He has published on freezing stress in plants and human blood cells, protein stability and controlled pH gradients in protein chromatography, a technology he co-invented. He began working in the early 1990s on digital imaging problems. For years he mused about creating a unique mathematical painting program. Since 2012 he has written code allowing him to transform digital images in a unique way purely through the use of mathematics. Hirsh has been juried into over 65 shows and won 9 awards. He has been favourably reviewed by East City Art and The Washington Post, invited to speak at The American Association for The Advancement of Science (AAAS) about art as a bridge between science and religion, featured in the Art the Science blog, Bethesda Magazine and New York's The Forward. He is an adjunct member of Washington's oldest art collective, The Foundry. He has sold numerous works at shows in the Washington DC area.
ALLEN HIRSH
Part of a Fossilized Engine Block (2016)
Mathematically transformed archival ink
1/1 image on framed canvas
