Of synchronicities, and stumbling across original inspirations



I came across this illustration by Bridget Riley, back in 2014.
 


At that moment I was looking to explore the translucency of marble, and I wanted to realize that through patterns which were fluid, soft and lent themselves well to dimensionality. Jump to May 2023- while visiting the Hammer museum, which is my local haunt, I was properly introduced, for the very first time, to this extraordinary illustrator - who had been an inspiration for me for almost a decade - and I had absolutely no idea who she was.


Going back to the summer of 2014 - Issey Miyake reintroduced the “pleats please” spring summer collection and I was obsessed with the texture and and dimension which was achieved through a seemingly flat material - fabric. I wanted to create a series of work in marble which lent “lightness” and “fluidity” to my “cumbersome” medium of natural stone/marble.

We went through hundreds of prototypes!

Origami and paper folding became completely unnecessary but absolutely essential(to the process) at the same time.

The evolution of the “Puritsu”, which literally means a “pleat” in Japanese - from it being carved in Absolute Black Granite - which is one of the hardest known materials to realizing it in white marble and exploring the translucency.




Experiments with scale and water.


I am still marveling at the evolution of this pattern, from a sketch made in 1960, to a imperfectly carved, highly straited version of the pattern in absolute black granite in 2014 - to the evolved, elegant interpretation in taj white marble in 2023.

I have to admit, I am beginning to truly appreciate the journey.