photo-eye | BLOG: New Work – Three New Series by Bob Cornelis

Bob Cornelis, Geometria 5, 2019, Palladium Print, 9 x 9" Image, 15.5 x 15" Mat, Edition of 10, $950

Since his debut on the Photographer's Showcase in 2015, it's clear Bob Cornelis is captivated by abstraction's expressive effects, obsessed with materials, and produces sumptuous palladium prints. In his three new bodies of work, Cornelis expands his practice by examining the "clean and classic" beauty of geometrically folded paper in Above the Fold, demonstrating the relationship art and mathematics have in abstraction in Geometria, and building perspective through attempting to visualise the vastness of space in Secret Universe. Below, Cornelis was generous enough to share a short statement detailing his thought process and inspirations surrounding each project.

We are proud to debut Above the Fold, Geometria, and Secret Universe today on the Photographer's Showcase, 9 x 9-inch prints in each project are available in an edition of 10 for $950 each.

"The project Above the Fold was inspired by the work of an obscure 19th-century Indian mathematician, T. Sundara Row, in his book Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding. Row showed how geometric proofs could be made easier to visualize and understand by using simple sheets of paper and folding them to create many of the linear shapes required in depicting rectangles, triangles, etc.

I have been working with paper as a subject for many years - I love its simplicity and malleability. Paper has a unique and almost endless potential to assume many appearances. In Row's hands, folded paper was made to exhibit both highly functional and surprisingly artistic aspects.

Above the Fold takes that as a starting point to present geometrically folded paper as a subject of clean and classic beauty."

– Bob Cornelis

» View Above the Fold

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"Art and mathematics share an essential characteristic - both use symbols to pictorially represent abstract concepts. I have always been fascinated by abstraction in my work, so a project exploring this connection made sense and Geometria was born.

In the art world, the practice of abstraction gained momentum in the 19th century when form began to be thought of separately from color and abstract art focused increasingly on structure rather than imitation or interpretation. In the world of mathematics, geometry is perhaps the most visual field of study. And it was also in the 19th century that geometry went through a revolution in which Euclidean geometry, the only recognized form, was joined by non-Euclidian geometries as co-equal ways of depicting the world.

Geometria uses a number of the elements and tools of geometry to represent abstract shapes and patterns that are often found in the art world as well. I created 2-dimensional shapes such as circles and triangles, 3-dimensional platonic solids such as cubes and octahedrons, geometric constructions using a compass and straight edge, coordinate systems with grids, etc to allow me to create multi-layered combinations of these symbols.

My goal with Geometria is to demonstrate the relationship of art to mathematics and to show how beauty is inherent in both."

– Bob Cornelis

» View Geometria

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"Supernovas, black holes, red dwarfs, dark nebulae, stellar streams…

Our vast universe is filled with fantastical objects, some observed, many only the subject of speculation - there are undoubtedly many more of which we have not yet conceived. Supposition about new celestial phenomena has been a favorite pastime of human beings for a long time, from early astrological divination to more modern science fiction. We’ve always wanted to understand our place in the grand scheme of things, an endeavor only recently moving solely from the realm of imagination to that of scientific understanding.

Secret Universe invites you to join me for a moment in my own contemplation of the wonders and curiosities of a universe that might share qualities with our own. It is an imaginary place filled with spheres, vortexes, planes and clouds moving in lockstep with or in opposition to each other or sitting in silent stillness against the black void of the infinite. Here you will find juxtaposed the overwhelming dynamism and the unsettling tranquility of deep space.

Secret Universe is entirely a creation of my mind. Much of my work relies on abstraction - I’m less interested in the realistic depiction of our world than on ways in which our minds make sense of it by extracting and repurposing what we take as real. As I explored the play of these simple shapes and the way they interacted with each other in the small space of my studio, I began to conceive of them as being vastly larger in an incalculably vaster space.

They’ve transformed into a secret universe, born of my imagination, that enables me to consider my place in the scheme of things."

– Bob Cornelis

» View Secret Universe

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