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Recent Acquisitions Releases Press Release Archive |
Mindscapes: The Art of Gregory Horndeski September 7–October 29, 2000 On the surface, Gregory Horndeski seems a contradiction in terms. Mathematics and physics bring to mind precise and orderly progressions, rigid statistical frameworks, and immutable laws. These are not descriptive terms usually associated with an artist who pours paints onto a canvas and shapes the mixing pools of color with a palette knife. But such is the world of Gregory Horndeski, mathematician turned artist whose brightly colored scenes have a delightful, almost primitive freshness reminiscent of folk art, yet are frequently firmly grounded in purpose and social commentary. His canvases are sometimes cut into triangles and other odd shapes, and some of the frames are irregularly shaped as well. Many of the frames are completely covered by neatly lettered text which ranges from philosophical musings on life and death to scientific formulas and diagrams which attempt to answer the riddles of the cosmos. Before he became an artist, Mr. Horndeski was a tenured professor of applied mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. While on sabbatical in the Netherlands in 1981, he saw a van Gogh exhibition and was deeply moved. "I was never that interested in art," he states. "Then I stumbled onto van Gogh. I never knew art could be like that. I had always thought of it as very representational and not very interesting. But then I thought, 'This is something I eventually want to do.' When I saw van Gogh I was sure I could paint."His paintings, not surprisingly, are heavily influenced by the Dutch Postimpressionists. Many have a celestial "Starry Night" kind of sky. Also not surprisingly, his interest in van Gogh has its roots in physics. "One of the things I liked when I saw van Gogh's paintings was the undulating swirls and rings that are like gravitational force lines on a star chart. If you look at a star chart, the gravitational potential fields look like that outside masses. They overlap like that."Many of Horndeski's early paintings were anecdotal in nature, and often dealt with with political, social, or psychological subjects. Much of his early work centered on crowded cityscapes with bustling freeways. Influenced by the expressway as a way of life, Horndeski honed in on our automobile-driven society and the way neighborhoods are sometimes torn asunder by intrusive freeways. Later works by the artist include "earthscapes" depicting large portions of the earth, sky, and their relationship to the enveloping universe; "pinball paintings", which are mixed media works in which a pinball can be dropped into the paintings and allowed to careen through, colliding with screws and springs which have been attached to the painting; and "math-phys" paintings in which the artist indulges his ongoing concern with the cosmos and things mathematical. There are also paintings inspired by classical music, with musical notation painted on the frames. Perhaps there is not such a contradiction after all. One need only look at the fastidious precision and orderliness of the musical score or text on the frames to realize that Horndeski does indeed marry the exactness of science with the flowing nature of his art. "The physicist in me seems to demand that I always present the universe in my paintings so as to make people cognizant of their place in the universe," Horndeski states. "This is often achieved by 'flattening' out the picture plane so severely as to make manifest most objects between those in the foreground, and the stars which lie beyond our earth."He has also done what he calls "landscape genesis" paintings in which a landscape, often modeled on human forms, is presented with photos depicting the evolution of the painting mounted on the frame. This is also a bit unusual, for most artists disdain allowing the viewer to see firsthand the artwork in its various stages of completion. For a mathematician, though, it's all part of the equation. Mindscapes: The Art of Gregory Horndeski is curated by Glenn Nerwin. The Tyler Museum of Art wishes to thank the following persons who have loaned works to this exhibition: Gregory Horndeski, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Delores and Seymour Zweigoron, Richardson; Linda and Emmett Murphy, Ft. Worth; Amy and Vernon Faulconer, Tyler; Charron and Peter Denker, Brady Allen, Chris and Dorrit Turner, Mark Jacobs, and Pat and Ed Ducayet, all of Dallas. Tyler Museum of Art season exhibition sponsors are the Watson W. Wise Foundation, the Fair Foundation, and Tyler Junior College. The exhibition is free and open to the public. The Tyler Museum of Art is located on the east side of the Tyler Junior College campus at 1300 S. Mahon. Museum hours are 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays. |