Descartes' Dream
Descartes' Dream
Edition 3 of 12
Unique multiple with hand applied real gold leaf
Pigment Ink on sustainable bamboo Awagami washi paper
118 x 84 cm (46.46 x 33.07 in)
Rene Descartes believed the key to the universe was its mathematical structure. One of his discoveries was the logarithmic spiral, which is the only spiral which can be tessellated with identical shaped tiles. Famous for his saying Cogito Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am), he deduced that the essence of human nature lies in thought. In this work, black lizards wander on to the page, and start to be drawn into a vortex, their journey, trapped in a logarithmic spiral, is never ending. At the same time, golden lizards march out of the vortex, having started at the dawn of time, and continue on their journey. What alchemy is this? Descartes dreamed of solving all mysteries with reductive reasoning, instead, at the smallest quantum scales, at the centre of the spiral, we have found an indeterminacy that resists all our natural logic.