The Order of Nature, 2019. BAU Photogravure

My print for BAU photogravure printed at Benveniste.com in Madrid

The subject is a fractal that can grow infinitely on all sides. I once saw a narrow bite of this pattern on a Roman mosaic from Merida in Spain. It intrigued me because the pattern is recognizable and yet not so. The narrow piece could not be doubled or flipped, and it took me most of that summer to figure it out. That it was a fractal with 3-4 simple rules. The white T and the black T must always turn their backs on each other. You must avoid more than 3 black squares in succession of each other diagonally as it becomes too visible. And the T's may not meet at the bottom, but otherwise you can turn and flip them for good.

But you have to be focused, because it can be more or less beautiful. I have called it the "Order of Nature" because it has something mathematical about it, and you think that you choose the direction yourself and create the fractal at the moment within the hard rules. And then there is the ending, which can unfold in countless ways.

I used the pattern for a mosaic I made in Portugal, and imagine what the Roman of his time thought when he apparently gave up, and made a beautiful picture above.

Eli Benveniste, May 2019.