Spectral Blackboard

It has been a very interesting project plus a lot of fun to collaborate with mathematicians who appreciate art. Below is the result of this cooperation presented by the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the Roayl Institution. I am very grateful to the whole team at LIMS and especially to my friend Yang-Hui He, who encouraged me to do it.

Art of mathematics

Marina Murvanidze Mitchell creates four original artworks showcasing the beauty of mathematics to celebrate Prof. Yang-Hui He’s Friday discourse.

In celebration of London Institute Fellow Yang-Hui He’s delivery of the Royal Institution’s renowned Friday evening discourse lecture on 24 February, his fellow Princeton alumna Marina Murvanidze Mitchell has created and donated four pieces of original artwork for display following the lecture’s conclusion.

Mitchell, a London-based Georgian American artist, explores the ambiguity of spaces and experiences through constructed images. She uses painting and photography as her main media. In these artworks, she has transformed the London Institute’s blackboards into harmonies of creativity and scientific discovery.

Extracting the formulaic nature of our fundamental research and fusing it with a hue tint tinge, these images tell a story of the beauty in mathematics. Cast onto aluminium, mathematical derivations are captured in a transcendent light. For us, each theoretical endeavour begins with a spark of creativity and chalk on a blackboard, and these artworks highlight this intrinsically creative nature of mathematics.

The artwork will be exhibited on the evening of the discourse lecture and sold in support of the London Institute’s Arnold and Landau Fellowships, which support theorists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. A limited number of copies will be available. To register your interest in purchasing please contact Sarah Myers Cornaby, Director of Development, smc@lims.ac.uk.

Marina Murvanidze Mitchell is a London-based Georgian American artist. In 2022 she won the Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM) Art Award. Her creativity is inspired by movement, places, and people who live outside their country of origin. She makes art to inspire imagination.

Spectral Blackboard

Shadows of Riemann

Marina Murvanidze Mitchell

Constructed image, direct printing on brush-finished aluminium

Image size: 48 x 27 cm; Outer size: 58 x 37 cm

Ltd ed 1/20

First impression, £350

Afterglow of a Function

Marina Murvanidze Mitchell

Constructed image, direct printing on brush-finished aluminium

45.1 x 40 cm, outer size: 61.1 x 56 cm

Ltd ed 1/20

First impression, £350

Vibrant Matrix

Marina Murvanidze Mitchell

Constructed image, direct printing on brush-finished aluminium

44.6 x 30 cm, outer size: 60.6 x 46 cm

Ltd ed 1/20

First impression, £300

Determination

Marina Murvanidze Mitchell

Constructed image, direct printing on brush-finished aluminium

44.8 x 40 cm; Outer size: 60.8 x 56 cm

Ltd ed 1/20

First impression, £350

The universe is rich in patterns, and scientists at the London Institute have a gift for spotting them. We build theories—concise mathematical descriptions of patterns—and identify their testable consequences. We pursue the most intriguing patterns, without concern for their usefulness, which leads to the most profound discoveries. Our basic-science breakthroughs change the way we see the world and shape it. They are the source of new insights, new predictions and new technologies.

Sometimes a very simple question could start a very complicated and long road down the memory lane. A couple of days ago at the Private View for our exhibition Progression at the @dcontemporary gallery a guest asked me how I make my work. After explaining a long most-likely-boring-for-everybody-else-but-me process, a question came that I had never heard before from a non-artist, “And how did you get to that process?”

My immediate response was about my interest in photography and painting; that my dissertation was about it; that I always wanted to combine those two media, but was trying to avoid painting over the photographs, the technique that many artists successfully use, including my favourite Gerhard Richter; and on and on and on.

And only this morning while thinking about this question again I started to analyse how I actually did get to that process. It was my last year at the Art Academy London (AAL) where I was finishing my BA (Hons) in Fine Art. I had a graduate show coming in a couple of months. It was so painful to sit in my studio knowing that I din’t have anything new or exciting to show or write about, and that I most likely will fail and never graduate. Then while looking at some of my old work I remembered what happened during my mid term presentation 3 month prior to my filling miserable. “Keep the images, change the narrative,” said Sue. At that moment, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and got back to the process of photo transfer, feeling that this might be the path… to somewhere. The images I was suggested to keep were the results of that process. However, I also knew that photo transfer is not enough, and I had to do something with the images. I did not know what or how though. First, I started combining them digitally and producing tons of them weekly. When wonderful Alison and Julian , my tutors and graduate show curators (bless their patient hearts), would look at them on a weekly basis they would just quietly say only two words, “Keep working.” Then I took a break from the photo images and got back to painting. With oil and acrylicI I tried decalcomania technique that I felt reflected my interest in establishing new life in a new place. (The word decalcomania comes from the French word decalquer meaning ‘transfer a tracing.’ And people who move do ‘transfer’ their lives.) I painted abstracts and city scapes, and sometimes even nothing, but still enjoyed playing with the oil paint and colours and taking pictures of it. I liked some photo images of my work more than my actual paintings. I started to realise that paint and colour is what helps to express my emotions and that is what my photo transfers lacked. When Julian one day asked me “How did you make it?”, and Alison a week later said “Love it, what is it?” I knew I was onto something. They both encouraged me to continue experimenting with it by still making more. And when they became interested in the question of how I was planning to present my images, I finally exhaled, happy that I came up with my own process and the work that I could put in my grad show. Having 4 weeks to go before the show, I stopped ‘making’ and started researching on surfaces and printing.

Below are thumbnails of few images created during that process. And here you can find the final outcome of my process. https://www.marinamitchellart.com/abstract-1