Regionalist on a Math Trip

So this may qualify me as a bit of a nutcake, but oh well.

Lately I've been thinking about art and math and psychadellics. Specifically DMT, Alex Colville and geometry including fractals. Far out man.

But no, really. I find them strangely related too, since Colville's paintings are strangely spiritual and certainly reverencial to classical geometry such as the notion of the golden mean, which is clear when looking at his preliminary drawings.

Colville's drawing for Woman in Bathtub, painted in 1973.

All of this coincides with a recent conversation I had with a friend who told me about the documentary DMT: The Spirit Molecule. I watched it last night, and it got me thinking about mathematical laws of nature we might not have figured out scientifically yet, but that nonetheless exist and have a profound effect on us. Check out the trailer here. Alex Grey features in the film, another artist sensitive to the possibility of mysticism in mathematics.

"Vision Crystal" by Alex Grey

Which leads me to my next point: Fractals. The above image by Alex Grey actually portrays a fractal (in red, embellished with the eyes). Fractals were discovered in the 70's as explained by Benoit Mandelbrot, and in short explained as a pattern repeating and encompassing itself. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well, but my point is, they're really cool, apparently useful, and in my humble opinion have to have something to do with our perception and understanding of visual beauty, which in a way is what we all deal with.

For more on fractals, here's a great PBS Nova episode on the matter. I wonder what Alex Colville thinks about it all, or if he knows about it at all...