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Cathy Smith Do the Maths - Art by Numbers in the Year of the Tiger November 2022

October 27, 2022

to

November 23, 2022

Cathy Smith
56253556
cathysmith217@gmail.com

Do the Maths - Art by Numbers in the Year of the Tiger

Cathy Smith, Red Tree Gallery, 2022

Well I’m not sure which arrived in our area first – Covid or Kmart, but both have certainly impacted my recent art ventures.

During the various lockdowns I became smitten with the range of locally available tropical plants which had evolved in far more exotic climes, and discovered they would survive, and indeed thrive, on the north-facing windowsills in our winter frosts area.  As a slavish follower of fashion, I acquired a variety of plants with large colourful leaves and started sketching…

During the various lockdowns, I needed to significantly change my 3 -dimensional activities.  One fateful morning I wandered into the craft/art section of the new store and discovered an eclectic range of low cost and potentially disposable supplies, including paper based and haberdashery items, as well as a paint by numbers canvas, and embroidery kits with detailed and numbered instructions for regarding colour use, in ordered steps.  These have proved invaluable for experimenting and for trialing ideas for more permanent work.

The first paint by numbers canvas was titled “Leopard Lady” and featured a dusky maiden suitably surrounded by Amazonian potted plants and seated next to a presumably vegetarian leopard…My obsessive side, familiar with big cat markings, questioned the title and soon confirmed that dusky maiden’s feline companion, as depicted, is in fact a cheetah. (google it) The leopard had indeed changed its spots.

In a mildly desperate moment I purchased my first ‘Leopard Lady’ canvas, (also my first paint by numbers canvas) and set to painting it, using the supplied paint but my own brushes.  I hated the process, finding it very difficult to both stick with the specified, flat colours, and to stay within the lines.  I eventually resorted to adding my own embellishments based on my house plants, and my enthusiasm for Henri Rousseau’s paintings.

I became fascinated by the way Andy Warhol changed the flat colours in his prints and began experimenting with colour substitution and subsequently began expanding my compositional changes…

Having wasted too much of my life in the company of 2 mathematicians, I have a long-standing interest in the underlying mathematical criteria used to identify a ‘good’ work in traditional western art, and design theory and practice.  I’m also fascinated by various theories and terminology I’ve encountered in recent years and the bewildering ways in which they apply (or don’t) to our everyday life.  Who would have thought that integer numbers have a use, and result in the rounding up of our payment at the supermarket checkout, or that the addition of zero to our number system (Arabic numbers) “helps us understand that we can use math to think about things that have no counterpart in a physical lived experience…without zero modern electronics would not exist.”  I’m basically a sculptor who enjoys constructing things, hitting things and admires Sierra’s corner pieces.  However: these mathematical principles also form the basis of Western ‘progress’ underpinning our culture in a myriad of ways from developing bombs and space craft, to uTube lessons that teach one how to draw a tiger in easy, numbered steps.

The mixed media work shown here is the product of the above interests and experiments, and a celebration of The Year of the Tiger.

artists pallette red yellow blue flat

How the leopard changed his spots

is he reading sheet music or playing by ear art by numbers

tiger army detail

tiger template flat

tiger habitat

inspirational message

$30

tiger conservation

$30

tasteful indoor plant in amazonian pot

$30

Timid tiger, bold tiger Pair of tigers

$40,$45,$75

On tuesday andy decided to leave the factory and explore the amazon and jungle planting 2

$40, $30

Venus Rising

$40

timely tigers

$45 pair

jungle triangle

NFS

tiger in unfamilair amazonian foliage , and Tiger impersonating a tank stand

$35, $45

Tigers of a dodgy balcony

$35 each

jungle planting 2, and outdoor tiger

$35 each

leopard lady 1

$110

Leaopard lady 3

$110

Tiger army

$25 each, $20 each for two or more

christine's K mart chair( keeler)

NFS

how to deal with a kmart chair

$95 each or $390 the set

How the leopard changed its spots

$25 each

How the leopard changed its spots following Fermats formulae

$35

Fermats formulae

how the leopard changed its spots

$35 each

how the leopard changed its spots integer numbers 1 to 9

$105 the set

a nice jungle based still life 1

$110

a nice jungle based still life 2

$110

a nice jungle based still life 3

$110

mathematical formulae

NFS

Tiger Tim

$120

Fibonacci's ginger plant

$25

Tiger triangle ambush

$90

Well primed tigers

$310 the set

Tania tiger

$95

Tom Tiger

$95

stairway to heaven

$90

Plants growing using turings instructions

$25 and $30

Plants growing using turings instructions

$25 and $30

Artist Pallette red yellow and blue

$25

The sharpie is mightier than the sword

$15

Sues and Brians iris's

$25

Sues and Brians iris's

$25

Tiger sketch( start of it all)

$25

Highway to hell is paved in good intentions

$190

Going to hell in a handbasket

$190
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