KAREN AXELRUD

ÁUREO

 

This work is part of a series called "Systems," which had some initial planning prior to painting. It was time for reflections on sequences, on infinity, on how art can lead us to make connections with the world around us.

 

Geometry makes part of my thinking process. I've always been interested in it, for concrete calculations and abstract purposes, generating relationships with life itself, questioning its reasons—something that has provided me with new knowledges. I pursue both the logical and the sensitive.

 

The title of the work doesn't hide what I'm discussing. The golden rectangle is the most aesthetically harmonious form to the eyes of man, balanced in its proportions. There is a special division between its parts. If we divide the longer side by the shorter side, the result is the number Phi, an infinite number. It's incredible that this same number is found in relationships of elements in nature, for example, in plants whose growth forms are suited to favor the obtaining of sunlight in a certain favorable order containing parts that relate this same proportion.

 

Starting from this theory, with irrational numbers, my rulers and scales wouldn't be able to measure it. I studied how to draw manually with a compass because I didn't need a number, but rather its proportion. Here my logic comes into play, because with a little experimentation on the canvas I soon realized that whenever I removed a square from each one, I would be creating a new golden rectangle because the proportions remained the same. So, I decided to follow the progression as far as I could measure, using drawing instruments.

 

I reduced the sizes of the rectangles, maintaining a relationship with the previous positions, making a kind of a rotation, an imaginary spiral movement of the squares that were being removed. There is an intuitive logic in this choice that I hope to convey to those who come to see the work. I invite you to think about what graphic operation was done for each reduction of the figure. The spiral is not obvious: it requires reflection because it is about the negative, about what has been eliminated.

 

The work went as far as my hands and instruments could achieve. The golden rectangle could continue decreasing to infinity, because in my imagination, one square at a time will continue to be removed, generating an ever-smaller golden rectangles. Other worlds must exist, even if our eyes are unable to see them, so I hope these rectangles are dividing on a microscopic plane or in other dimensions beyond this one we can perceive.

(1)

 

Karen Axelrud, 2024.

 

 

(1)  I recommend watching the video “Division” available on Karen Axelrud’s YouTube channel. “I took a piece of   blue paper that I had brought with me and started dividing it, tearing the paper in half, a simple action, releasing one of the parts with each movement, systematically reducing it to the limit of what my hand could hold. This was an experience of what to do in the face of the sublime, of being in the immensity of that desert. In the foreground, the blue paper decreases in size until it disappears. In the background, the blue sky remains vast and infinite.”