organic

Andrew Werth

In 1952, British mathematician Alan Turing wrote that stable spatial patterns may form in systems where two or more chemicals, or "morphogens," react with each other while diffusing through a substrate at differing rates. He proposed that such a “reaction-diffusion” process might be responsible for many of the patterns found in nature, such as stripes on a zebra, spots on a giraffe, the curves on brain coral, and more.

I have used these “Turing Patterns” in my acrylic paintings for many years as their positive and negative shapes provide fertile ground for creative expression and provide a framework upon which I can explore interaction of color and form. In my "Elusive" paintings series, gradients of colorful marks swirling in one direction interact with contrasting gradients swirling in a different direction atop of Turing Patterns to create a sense of depth and ambiguity.
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"Elusive #4" (2017). 36"x36". Acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Elusive #1" (2017). 36"x36". Acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Elusive #8" (2019). 30"x30". Acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.

After a first career as a software engineer with formal degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in Computer Engineering and Information Networking, Andrew Werth moved to Manhattan where he self-directed an arts education that drew from many of the arts institutions in New York City including the School of Visual Arts, The New School, and the Art Students League. Since moving back to New Jersey in 2005, he has been exhibiting throughout the New Jersey / New York / Pennsylvania area and was selected by the Monmouth Museum as one of their New Jersey Emerging Artists in 2016.

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Jeanne Heifetz

"[W]ayfarer, there is no road, the road is made by walking."
​- Antonio Machado, “Proverbs and Songs 29”

"Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go."
- Theodore Roethke, “The Waking”
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"Approach/A Void 12" (2016). 16.5"x22.75". Ink on handmade gampi paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

As a child, I was always afraid of making the wrong decision. Selecting from many possible options was torture unless I could find a convincing rationale for my choice, some external justification beyond my own desire. Fear made me superstitious. I enlisted numerology, mythology, arcane patterns of all sorts to confirm the “rightness” of my decisions.

This body of work confronts decision-making head on. Still craving a system, I borrow one from nature: Plateau’s laws, which govern the branching and growth of many natural forms. Within that system, I improvise. Each drawing grows by slow accretion as I make hundreds of tiny sequential decisions.

Working at the micro level, I have no idea of the macro consequences until I step back from the piece. Even then, because I work in ink, I can only move forward, building on what I have already laid down. There’s no turning back. The tiny decisions are irreversible, like scars and other indices of the unidirectionality of our lives. In this way, making the work is like life: a series of incremental choices whose full import we may not know for years.

There is no road: we make the road by walking, and learn by going where to go.
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"Approach/A Void 8" (2015). 11"x14". Ink on handmade denim paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Approach/A Void 5" (2015). 22"x29". Ink on handmade flax paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

Jeanne Heifetz came to visual art by a circuitous route. She has two degrees in English (Harvard A.B., NYU M.A.), spent a year as the writer-in-residence at Exeter, worked at Esquire and American Heritage magazines, wrote a book on organic food (HarperCollins) and one on the origin of color names (Henry Holt). Heifetz also had a parallel career as a weaver, exhibiting at venues like the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and the Smithsonian Craft Show. In 2007, she started applying fiber techniques to non-traditional materials; by 2011 her work had shifted entirely from fine craft to fine art. Since then, she’s shown in galleries and museums in 17 states, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Australia, and Israel. Her work is in the Drawing Center’s curated registry and the flat files of the Kentler International Drawing Space. A LABA fellow in 2018-19, Heifetz lives and works in Brooklyn.

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Robert Fathauer

As a trained as a research scientist, I have had a lifelong interest in art, and am fascinated by beautiful and complex forms both in mathematics and in the natural world. In my artwork, I explore mathematical ideas and to extend them in innovative ways to create unique prints and sculptures. I am particularly intrigued by complex and intricate structures that exhibit symmetrical and regular underlying order. Many of the patterns in nature and in mathematics result from algorithmic processes, rules that are applied over and over again. ​

“Trifurcation” (2014) is a fractal tree carried through five generations. With each iteration, the number of branches is tripled. As more and more branches are added, the top surface begins to display the classical fractal known as the Sierpinski triangle. The sculpture measures 17" in height.

“Cubes” (2016) is assembled from hand-built porcelain cubes in five sizes, with a scaling factor of 2 between successive sizes. The largest cubes measure 6" x 6" x 6", while the smallest measure 3/8" x 3/8" x 3/8". The simple algorithm used in the assembly shown here exhibits the classical fractal known as a Sierpinski triangle.

“Three-fold Development” (2013). This sculpture is based on the first five generations of a fractal curve. The starting point is a circle, and the first iteration produces a three-lobed form. With each iteration, the number of lobes is tripled. The spacing between features is essentially constant throughout a layer, while the three-fold symmetric boundary of the curve becomes increasingly complex. This overall structure is reminiscent of naturally-occurring corals. The sculpture measures 13" in both diameter and height.

Robert Fathauer has a Ph.D. from Cornell University in Electrical Engineering and worked for a number of years as a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In the early 1990s he began making tessellations prints inspired by the work of M.C. Escher. His two-dimensional art evolved to include fractals, knots, and polyhedra, and he has written numerous papers on his explorations in these areas. Robert lives and works in Arizona, where he owns a small business producing and selling products that combine art and mathematics. He took the lead in making art exhibitions an annual feature of both the Bridges Conference, starting in 2001, and the Joint Mathematics Meetings, starting in 2004.

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Emily Garfield

I draw imaginary maps and spaces using “rules” informed by subconscious applications of geographic experience as well as the connections that I believe exist between maps and biological systems. I “grow” my drawings algorithmically, often describing them as hand-drawn procedural artwork. The works are created by deciding first on a process, then executing that process by hand. The maps are visualizations of where my hand has been as I draw. I work in various media, including traditional pen + watercolor drawings as well as collaborations with technology. My inspiration comes from the aesthetic similarity between maps and other networks in the world such as neurons and tree branches, and my work considers the implications of these connections.

The series “Aleataxonomy” explores making maplike drawings using instructions chosen by a computer algorithm. The title combines “aleatoric”, chance-based, and “taxonomy”, referring to the drawing styles that the algorithm chooses from at random. For the series, I developed algorithms to execute some of my map processes and wrote code in Processing that results in written instructions when the code is run. I then interpret those instructions to add to the drawing, and repeat. The instructions determine which shapes I draw, where on the page, and in what color. The project addresses the question of how “random” differs to a computer and to a human, and how human artists can bend rules where a computer cannot - or where certain algorithms cannot.
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"Aleataxonomy series #21" (2020). 6"x8". Pen, watercolor, computer instructions. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Aleataxonomy series #22" (2020). 6"x8". Pen, watercolor, computer instructions. Image courtesy of the artist.

Taking inspiration from scientific approaches, Emily Garfield bases her art practice on collaborative discovery as much as individual research, highlighted in ongoing monthly science-art meetups as well as workshops: at Genspace in New York, and at the DeCordova Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum while in Boston, among others. She was the 2014 director of the Somerville Open Studios city-wide arts event, and now lives in New York where she helps to produce the Tribeca Art+Culture Night art festival. Emily Garfield received her BA in Visual Arts from Brown University, where she also studied the aesthetic response through cognitive science. ​

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Darya Warner

I am an artist working in the intersection of art and science with the emphasis on the interconnectivity of various systems of intelligence across the species. Recently I have been investigating this notion through the prism of Climate Change. My work explores  Biophilia Hypothesis ("the love to all living things“) as a crucial factor in reconnecting humans and nature via interactive installations, visuals displays, photography, sound, time- based media and living matter. With the help of my research on sustainable art practices as a vital part of work ethics, I  aim to address issues of the environmental impact of artists among others and help to navigate the creative processes in a more Earth-conscious way.

The series "Reticulum" explores the overlap of various networks created by humans, nature (fungi), and machine-made algorithms in time and scale. "Reticulum limina” navigates us through time-lapse created by the software algorithm of the image processing. The threshold changes every 9 points (corresponding with an average of 9 days of mycelium to develop a visible network) culminating in “Reticulum mycelium.” The way the algorithm choosing specific marks is unknown - a mystery within. At the same time, the viewer is encouraged to interact with mycelium growth in real-time through “Reticulum hybrida” first by placing the ear onto the petri dish, which acts as a mini amplifier. The humming noise emitted through the copper plate is a 220 Hz sine wave broadcasted for the duration of the open hours, hypothesized to induce growth in living organisms. Here the source is hidden - by moving the dish around on the copper plate and identifying optimal hum volume the viewer is actively participating in the growth of Pleurotus Eryngii. The mycelium is growing on the paper, onto which the map of the urban collecting site is laser etched. For the duration of the show, the “control” in the middle of the piece is anchored and only 3 other Petri dishes are allowed to be moved. The mycelium networks develop over time colliding all elements together into a reticulum. Within 2 weeks the mycelium was over competed by common green mold, Trichoderma harzianum, which grew in circular patterns responding to the sound stimulation. The dishes were moved by the audience during the open hours except the ‘control’ in the middle, which did not produce any ‘rings’. This project continues to investigate the patterns and networks in nature. 

"Reticulum limina" 9 laser-etched 12”x12” prints on Reeves BFK paper. GIF animation. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Reticulum mycelium in Copper" 36”x42”. Intaglio print on Reeves BFK paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Reticulum mycelium in Yellow Ochre" 36”x42”. Intaglio print on Reeves BFK paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Reticulum hybrida" Interactive installation. Image courtesy of the artist.

Born in Ukraine, Darya Warner immigrated to the USA in 2001 to pursue a career as an artist. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2014 with a focus on Bioart and pursued her Masters at University at Buffalo in conjunction with Coalesce Biological Lab. Her recent projects involve the development of a MycoPrinter, an open-source low tech bioprinter that can print with biological materials such as fungi. This brings attention to sustainable art practices and notions of art as a biological medium. Darya is a co-founder and Director of Operations at CAYO Residency, an Art and Science residency based in the Bahamas focused on bridging biological research and artistic collaboration.

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Daniel Hill

​My work is an exploration between vision and sound and the power of this connection to generate compelling visual environments. The inquiry of this integration has also satisfied a strong interest in the ideas and methodology of science as a basis for the conceptual underpinning of the work. As such, the method of creating my work is scientifically inspired with a well thought out and tested process oriented to have optimal pragmatic results both for the quality of the work itself and the benefits of the process for me as the maker. I pursue a union between the perceptual and conceptual with a visual art that can be both perceptually powerful enough to hold the eye in our visually demanding world, yet simultaneously meditative, reflective, and firmly rooted in a solid conceptual foundation.
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"Untitled 11" (2018). 22"x30". Acrylic polymer emulsion on paper mounted on panel. Image courtesy of McKenzie Fine Art.

"Untitled 5" (2016). 30"x44". Acrylic polymer emulsion on paper mounted on panel. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Untitled 14" (2018). 30"x44". Acrylic polymer emulsion on paper mounted on panel. Image courtesy of the artist.

Daniel Hill is a painter, sound artist, writer, educator, and curator whose work explores the relationship between visual art, sound, and science. His paintings employ a rules based system in which the notion of embodied cognition is an inquiry as well as the balance between the aesthetic and conceptual. His paintings are held in many private and public collections, including United States Embassies, Microsoft Corporation, and Bank of America. Hill has appeared on panel talks or contributed writing to; The Brooklyn Rail, The CUE Art Foundation, The Helix Center, SciArt Initiative, Interalia Magazine, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, SciArt Magazine among others. His sound environments have been featured at Scholes Street Studio in Brooklyn, NY, and at other galleries in New York and Paris. He has curated “Visual Inquiries” at Pace University and the traveling exhibition “Emergence and Structure.” He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Art at Pace University in Manhattan.

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Eliza Evans

​In my work, I experiment with construction materials, plastic, trees, wire, electronics, data, and bureaucracy to tease out the impact of past events on current circumstances and to let the future unfold unscripted. The initial parameters of each installation are carefully considered but then evolve as a result of interaction with people, time, and weather. The work asks us to consider the consequences of our disordered relationships with nature and each other. Our actions, as mediated by social, economic, and technological systems, are indelibly inscribed in each other and the landscape. I aim to make these inscribed relationships more legible. 

"Kill Plot Home Goods" is about the technological mediation of our relationships with one another and nature. The digital images are based on hunters’ schematics of their hunting grounds. The schematics show how they craft the land to attract deer, guide them through their feed plots, and ultimately to the kill plots where the animals are dispatched. Game cameras surveil the entire enterprise. The images are turned into jacquard patterns, which are, in turn, made into soft home goods. The jacquard loom was the mechanical inspiration for early computers which thus enabled wide-spread surveillance, predictive algorithms, etc. The home goods reestablish intimacy with social and ecological violence.
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"Kill Plot Home Goods 1" (2020). Digital image. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Kill Plot Home Goods 2" (2020). Digital image. Image courtesy of the artist.

"Kill Plot Home Goods 3" (2020). Digital image. Image courtesy of the artist.

Eliza Evans was born in a rustbelt steel town and raised in rural Appalachia. She currently splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley. Her work was exhibited at the Thomas Erben Gallery, NYC (2020), Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY (2019), Edward Hopper House Museum, Nyack, NY (2019), Chashama Sculpture Field, Pine Plains, NY (2018), BRIC, Brooklyn (2017), and Purchase College, Purchase, NY (2017). Residencies include the Art Law Program (forthcoming), National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, UC Santa Barbara (2020), Bronx Museum AIM, and Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN (both 2019). Evans holds an MFA from SUNY Purchase College in visual art and a PhD in economic sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. ​

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