Featured Artist James Robert White

Artist James Robert White explores the concept of complexity, illustrating the natural algorithms that shape our world. Learn more about his work by visiting his website.

 

 

I have worked as an artist for over twenty-five years. I started developing an insight for science and art from early on in my life, and identify with the Renaissance artists who brought together art, science and culture to make major leaps in humanity. This is currently what’s happening across the globe now.

 

 

I see the world as an entity that’s interlinked. Having developed and mastered my own painting techniques, I see how the mathematics of the future can be linked to the arts as in the past.

 

 

Determined to find a way in which I could use my hands to depict the natural algorithms that shape our world and very being, I have created a unique style, creating works that are understood and verified by scientists as examples of “complexity.”

 

 

I seek to explore the concept of complexity, and the central idea that “nothing exists on its own.” Through constant, in-depth observation of the nature of complexity, I explore the patterns that make up our world and being. I have noticed “self-similarity” patterns within patterns and within structures.

 

 

From trees, leaves, and also distribution systems of society (postal, road and internet networks and financial trading algorithms), right through to our very own inner workings such as the circulation system, our veins, the nervous system, the workings of the retina, kidneys, blood vessels and nervous system, I observed that all are examples of structures and systems which have similar dynamic forces at work.

 

 

My work on complexity and nature are essentially about viewing the world through a lens that is only available to us via computers, which can calculate the many millions of simple interactions that result in the natural world we see around us.

 

 

It is also about a specific kind of mathematics that explores the idea of “emergence.” This means new patterns and endless novelty and change emerges from simple interactions between components which make up the complex system.

 

 

My paintings naturally depict complexity. They provide the viewer with a feeling of connection with the world around us.

 

 

The viewer can emotionally engage with the paintings via their relation to their own private or intuitive understanding of complex aspects of nature and phenomena they are already familiar with. In turn, this helps us to understand the ideas behind the higher maths and complex networks.

 

 

I also raise the question within the viewer, “So where do I fit in within these dynamic networks and structures, and what are these structures that I am made of?” Both the artist and the viewer are left understanding that we are interlinked in so many different ways.

 

 

I have shown internationally over thirty times, mainly in London. I have worked on interdisciplinary projects with CERN, the Welcome Foundation and University College London (UCL). I am currently working on two projects with my long-time collaborator, Philosopher of science Adam Timlett with the Royal Astronomical Society, one on gravitational fields and one with our bicentennial Society mapping project.

 

Artist James Robert White invites you to follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

 

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