Image Insights: Infinitea

Dec 09, 2019

A teacup on a table on a raft, inside another teacup on a table on a raft, inside another teacup on a table on a raft.

 

 

Infinitea is one of my early images, finished in 2002, updated in 2016.  It was inspired by my love of herbal tea, and by a lifelong fascination with tessellation and periodicity.  Tessellation is an arrangement of close fitting pieces or elements, and periodicity is the tendency of things to appear in intervals. We're surrounded by both all the time, in nature and industry. The finest artistic celebration of these ideas however, is in the work of Graphic Artist MC Escher.

You'll see my hand drawn homage to Escher's "Lizards", a tessellation, on the porcelain of the teacup. If you are very young, or have taken up residence under a rock, and are therefore not familiar with Escher's work, look him up and be ready to go down a wonderful rabbit hole of mind bending artwork.

The periodicity part of the image above is the repetition of the entire scene. The raft in the cup contains a table with another cup, which contains a table with another cup, which contains a table with another cup, which contains a table with another cup. Five iterations exist in the original file of the image.  I've often wondered, If I could print it big enough, say, on the side of building, if you could see them all...

Sending you a lovely dose of order and rhythm. Even in the most chaotic times, it's all around you, if you look for it.