The recently presented series of my works is based on imagined spaces defined by catenary curves. My interest in the determinism of these curves began while creating my installation Black Sphere with Catenary Curves (2021).
A chain suspended at two points and composed of uniform elements always takes on a single, parabola-like shape due to its own weight. While a pictorial transfiguration of these curves shaped by gravity is described by a mathematical equation, I find it difficult to comprehend even as the mathematician Edward Frenkel provides a proof based on Gödel’s theorem: mathematical concepts form an independent reality, existing beyond human perception, time, and space.
The process of painting is usually accompanied by thoughts oscillating between representation and ontology. While painting the parabolic line, this oscillation diminishes, and the continuous repetition of arcs transforms the negative connotations tied to existential or gravitational determinism into the experience of stepping into a realm of timeless universality.
Katalin Haász