Lee Jia-An
Irrational Decimals is a 27.2 x 27.2cm watercolour painting that contemplates the movement of time (and therefore, form) as a spiral. The ancient Tantric aphorism that claims form to be an “envelope of pulsation” can be replicated geometrically as the spiralling of numbers around supra-rational roots (in other words, irrational numbers such as π or √5). For instance, Fibonacci numbers have created spirals like those of the chambered nautilus or the branching in certain trees but each term within the Fibonacci sequence is in relation to one another as 1:φ. Any three successive terms will therefore be in relation to each other as 1:φ:φ² . Furthermore, the Golden Ratio, φ, has its roots in the irrational decimal of the √5 because the ratio is expressed in formulaic terms as such:1+√5/2. Form is the envelope of pulsation, expressed by an irrational root that folds back in on itself repeatedly on each level. So in the painting, a circle expands to reveal a landscape that contains within it yet another circular portal that will expand into yet another landscape. Nevertheless, all this expansion is made possible only through the two circular pupils embedded within the two irises of our eyes.
