Science is often an inspiration for Keith Tyson, who won the British Turner prize for contemporary visual art in 2002. For his latest work, he took this to the next level – pouring paint onto aluminium and letting natural processes do the rest.
Nested
This is one of Tyson’s “Mathematical Nature” paintings.
This means that he has applied the paint to the aluminium in a mathematical order. In this case, he poured on the pigments in a numbered spiral .
Usually Tyson uses 10 to 15 substances on each work, including stained-glass window paint, ceramic glazes, resins and pigments he’s invented himself.
(Image: Keith Tyson)
Fire
The following four works are the “Elements” series of the “Nature” paintings.
The idea for the work came about by accident while Tyson was busy collecting “all the paints known to man” in his studio for another project.
“One day they all collapsed and there was just this huge pile of junk on the floor. I was devastated as this was thousands of pounds’ worth of paint, but there was one corner that had this incredibly DNA-like structure.
“I spent ages trying to work out which paints were responsible and in the process found more patches of the mess that I liked.”
(Image: Keith Tyson)
Earth
Tyson says it’s purely coincidental that his paintings end up looking organic: like a geological formation, a collection of tissues on a medical slide or an artist’s impression of a black hole.
The title of this work refers to the way he creates the art, he says, rather than what it ends up looking like.
(Image: Keith Tyson)
Water
“Nature does its stuff instantly, at all scales, everywhere. There’s no part of the painting that can be lazy. It all has to obey the laws of physics,” says Tyson.
“You zoom into them and they retain their level of detail, but with a painting done by hand you can always get down to the brush marks. The paintings look as good close up as they do far away.
“Nature’s better at painting than I am.”
(Image: Keith Tyson)
Air
Tyson’s “Nature” paintings are part of his exhibition Cloud Choreography and Other Emergent Systems, showing at the gallery in London until 11 November.
(Image: Keith Tyson)
