My expressions of interest

Drove up to the Adelphi building today to an unceremonious handing in of my Expressions of Interest for the Singapore Biennale 2008. It was a necessary effort but altogether futile. A package of dashed hopes left my hand into the keeping of a stone-faced receptionist at the cold, officious, lifeless NAC cubby hole. Agathe's mural cheered me up some. A fellow artist followed me in looking nearly as glum. CK was smilingly pessimistic. His package looked better than mine. Some serious prep must have gone into making it. I wish him luck as I sidled out... wondering.. what would it take?

It would be a wonderful lifeline to any struggling artist. I am sure I need it more than the next artist. Somebody will throw me a bone I am sure. Some body, some day..

Here is my response to WONDER. There is not enough 'WONDER' in it I fear..


A response to the concept of wonder in my art practice.


Let me start by introducing a simple mathematical problem to tell you what I do.

Show that √2 = p/q, where p and q are integers is bizarre or contradictory!

You might look at this problem and engage in mathematical free association and write the following sets of equations:

√2= p/q
√2 = p
p = √2 q
(√2)2 = (p/q)2
2 = p2/q2
p2 = 2q2

If you are involved with this maths, you will get excited about the last equation (in bold). You will experience excitement and pleasure even before you know where it will lead you. You will scarcely look back at any of the other equations or even the original question - even if the next steps turn out to lead nowhere.

There is something about that last equation that seems ‘right’. Mathematicians experience beauty in that last step. The aesthetics of the equation takes hold of the unconscious and brings pleasure and excitement. What is it? Is it its seriousness, its depth, its generality, unexpected or inevitability?

From the last equation it can be easily deduced that p is even and hence q must be even, and the original equation cannot hold without common factors. QED

My art practice is wholly based on the wonder of mathematics. I am motivated by the aesthetics of elegant mathematics now in my art as I was as a mathematician in my past. I hope to tap on this phenomenon to push elegant and powerful mathematics as objects of art. I hope to do this thru my paintings.

I want the secret to be out that the keys to mathematics are beauty and elegance and not dullness and technicality. I believe that one’s intellectual and aesthetics life cannot be complete unless it includes an appreciation of the power and the beauty of mathematics. But more so, I want this appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics to educate us about beauty in general. In my art, I am committed to elucidating our search for beauty thru the aesthetics I have been party to in mathematics.

To describe the world around me I have the language of mathematics and I have the amazing experience of doing mathematics at a pretty high level where beauty and aesthetics play such an important role. But it is well known that this experience is only available to one who is involved in mathematics. You cannot much appreciate it by viewing equations and proofs. The aesthetics of mathematics is not a spectator sport. This is my challenge.

Also, I am actively working with a slightly altered concept of ‘psychical distance’, introduced by Edward Bullough in 1912 in his influential paper –“Psychical Distance as a Factor in Art and Aesthetic Principle”. I use the lessons from this paper in my paintings, drawing my audience using images that bring my audience in close psychical distance to my paintings painted using mathematics that more often than not increases their aesthetic distance. In this way, I ‘trap’ my mathematics-averse audience to experience the wonder and beauty of maths.