Abstract Artist Working in the Realm of Digital Media
Living with a lifelong passion for Geometry and year-long isolation from the devastating pandemic Covid, artist and curator Mark Starel of Warsaw Poland brought the two together (geometry & mask) with his newest exhibit COVIMETRY.
Today human survival is dependent upon our using an “antivirus” mask covering our most noted communication tool, our mouths, along with noses and much of our face. The mask has hindered our ability to read others expressions and feelings. By adopting the mask as a template and canvas, it now becomes a form for expression- even if just a fragment of a bigger picture of our times metaphorically.
Starel also brought together over 300 artists, uniting continents and likeminded geo-zealots. His intention is to grow the exhibit until it reaches 1000 artists, representing every country as a global community. Different artistic strategies are conveyed, exploring the shape and structure of the mask through the inclusion of a variety of media, styles and techniques that allow for contemporary notions of how geometry is being investigated today.
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My Entry
How I tackled my entry was to look at the hexagon and how it might fit in relation to the shape of the mask. I had just finished the artwork CIRCULUX I, a celebration of spinning circles at the corner points and centers of hexagons. Superimposing CIRCULUX I on top of the mask, I aligned two sides of the hexagon with the side corners while centering a hexagon between them. The V rests on top of the central hexagon locking it’s geometry to that of the mask.
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My favorite geometric shapes are the circle and the hexagon. They are highly efficient. Here, I combine them in a symbiotic arrangement. The circles become spinning axis’s as it’s parts come alive in an abstracted metabolic process.
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Here I celebrate the underappreciated asterisk. The hashtag is getting all the fame. But before the hashtag became so celebrated with the advent of instagram, the asterisk has been used throughout the ages. The iconography of the Asterisk is deeply embedded in the human psyche. The original literal meaning of asterisk is “little star”. The symbol of the asterisk, ubiquitous today, used in computer language and mathematics has ancient roots going back to pre-history in cave paintings by ice age humans (https://youtu.be/hJnEQCMA5Sg). From there it has gone on throughout history to be used in many ways, literature, mathematics and today in the languages of computer code. And lets not forget it’s use in todays language to tone down expletives, a common example being f**k. Where would we be without the diminutive asterisk.
