Ellen Grossman

Since you’ve probably all seen this charming video of Jay-Z meeting artist Ellen Grossman on the subway, it only seems fitting to feature her incredible work on A&SJ.

These highly-detailed drawings mimic those of topographic sciences, “mapping surfaces” as one would map terrain. The result is a careful study in two, even three, dimensions. By recording the date and time of each drawing session, Grossman invites the variable of observation into the process, recalling the uncertainty principle. She writes of her work:

“Lines build up, revealing the topography of surges, shifts, eruptions, trickles, and the wind made visible. Time also flows, so I began recording the date, hour and minute at the start and end of each line and running totals. This is daunting and that’s part of the point: Written numbers build up, forcing the lines to fan out, reading at first glance as a texture, radically changing the drawings. As in science recording observations can alter results.”

See more of Grossman’s work here.

- Erin Saunders

(Source: artandsciencejournal.com)