The Project

The idea to interpret the Periodic Table through painting and drawing had been germinating for a long time. I first thought about the Periodic Table as subject matter when I read Primo Levi’s book “The Periodic Table” in which he writes metaphorically about events in his life as a chemist and the roles certain elements played at various stages.  

It got me thinking about the elements and how I might interpret them relative to my concerns as a painter. I also realized that this could be a fitting match for my concerns about the environment - the fact that all of these elements are finite resources - and also bring added purpose to the work.

All of the elements share a remarkable origin in that they are all the consequences of the birth and death of stars. Everything on Earth is made up of these elements, including us, and it is truly astounding to realize that we are, in fact, “the stuff of stars”. Intrinsic to this, is the importance and significance of the elements to our lives and that it is incumbent upon us to consider these resources carefully and utilize them responsibly.  

I have a three part approach to each element, the first, being a square format acrylic painting that addresses the physical qualities of the element – the basic design for each is based on the geometry of the elements crystal structure and is then arranged in a pattern that loosely follows the formation of aperiodic tiling, the second part, a drawing, in graphite, inks, and acrylic, reinterprets the painting using a variety of effects with line and value to produce textures that further develop the identity of the element, and the third, a gouache on paper that deals with the atomic energy of the element and is therefore made up of faceted, transparent linear shapes (also derived from the crytstal structure) moving in all directions.

Color for each element is derived from a combination of physical properties as well as the atomic spectral color inherent in each. From there, an intuitive approach becomes the dominant factor as each work progresses to its finished state.  

For me, every work should move forward in some way – never repeating motifs or notions about plasticity in order to attain consistency. Rather, painting is first and foremost about curiosity and discovery – curiosity for the sake of understanding and discovery for the sake of expression.

The Design of the Table

*The design of the table itself stems from my appraoch to this project. I started with all of the elements that are essential to sustaining life and are indicated along the cyan line. I then moved into the elements that are essential to technology (mainly the rare earth elements and still in  progress) and are indicated along the magenta line. Lastly, the elements essential to industry (still in progress) and indicated by the yellow line..

These three areas have many crossovers and I designed the table in this way in order to effectively show these relationships. This table will continue to be added to as the project progresses.