Tristesse Seeliger: Collage and Mathematics
Vancouver artist proves that mathematics can be beautiful.
Photography: Jennilee Marigomen
Through the re-examination of space, mathematics, and physical reality, Tristesse Seeliger creates tessellating, evocative, mixed-medium and collage pieces. Using her background in teaching as a foundation, Tristesse seeks to discover the relationships that exist in our personal and social realities, while still leaving room in her prismatic art pieces for the audience's own interpretation. Tristesse’s bright sherbet gradients sit on a magnetic fastening system, allowing the owner to shape and reshape the installation easily.
See Tristesse’s works available for purchase on Kabuni.
You’ve been teaching for 16 years running now, do you find working in a high school makes room for your creative process to be challenged? How do your frustrations, joys, and discoveries of teaching inform your work?
Well I always say to my students that I learn more from them then they will ever learn from me. That is because I see 110 students every day and if I am paying attention to their successes and failures, all are hugely informative. I tell my students to watch others carefully in class and take notice of what they like and don’t like. I tell them to keep a mental list of techniques, colour mixing, and process’ that they respond to. Being in an art class is like being in a science lab, I give the class a goal or challenge and they have to figure out how to creatively accomplish that goal. I ask a question and get 30 different visual responses to it in each class I teach. How could I not learn from that experience or be challenged by them? I have some super talented students.
Some of your work experiments with an Escher-like illusion of three dimensionalities, but include an element of mobility and change. Obviously creating these pieces involve a lot of forethought, what is your process of marrying mathematics with art?
I first started to look closely at the relationship of art to math because of my friend Nathalie, who is a Professor of Mathematics in the Faculty of Education at SFU. We had been talking about how to better teach that relationship to our students. So I started delving into Escher, tessellations, Islamic patterning and sculpture in order to better understand math and its relationship to art. All 3D illusions on 2D planes is geometry. When I started playing with these geometries as an artist, I became obsessed with it. I also have a love of woodworking and had been taking courses for a few years in that area.
The use of Canadian survey maps is unique to your work, how did you come across that material? What drew you to include it in your collages?
At the same time as I was exploring concepts of math, my friends at Contexture Design were moving their design studio and they had 2000 maps from the geological survey of Canada that dated back to the 1960’s. They had to get rid of them and wanted them to go to happy homes. When I saw these maps with all their beautiful textures and colour palettes, I knew I had to tessellate them. Once I started doing that I couldn’t stop. This type of collage has the same precision you need to have as woodworking does but it is less expensive. Ha ha!
I love your collage pieces, which I have referred to as mimicking early American quilt patterning. You yourself talk about the need to reimagine space, metaphor, and personal meaning. Are there certain patterns that you are drawn to, that call up particular experiences?
The way I approach the map pieces now, after making more than 40 of them so far, is either by surfacing the whole picture plane which is really just about the joy of pattern, texture and colour, or I will tessellate the maps together and leave lots of negative space. This allows more room for the audience to bring their own meaning to a piece. The shapes and patterns ground the art work, but the negative space is more an invitation to let the mind wander. Remixing and shaping the maps create a metaphor because it uses a known system of physical reality, cartography, and then juxtaposes it to these more universal shapes, patterns and colours - getting the audience to look at the “landscape” differently. What the metaphor means to you is going to be different then what it means to the next person. I find the pieces to be quite calming to look at and meditative. I think that this meditative quality is why there is such a thing as sacred geometries.
The patterns are all quite different. The Necker cube pattern is really enjoyable because of its three dimentialiy, but I have enjoyed figuring out the more difficult patterns like the Penrose and the Marjorie Rice pentagon tessellations. Both these patterns are tessellations that were developed by mathematicians. The painted panels are a spin off of learning the Penrose pattern and then translating that pattern from collage pieces to large hand made paintings on panels.
To date, which project are you most proud of, and why?
Last year my husband David Crompton and I had a double art opening in two galleries that live side by side on Hastings Street, Vancouver. He was asked to do a show at the Remington Gallery and I was asked to do a show at The Gam Gallery separately. We decided to do this together which was very much a statement that we were pursuing our art practices together. I love my husband and I have always found his work to be thoughtful, beautiful and profound. I love that we have been able to both pursue our art practices and support each other. I think I am most proud of this because it is an event that represents my love of him, the creative process and life long learning.
What subject are you planning on tackling next in your work?
I would love to do some much larger sculptural pieces mixing mural and sculpture together, if the truth be told. I think I would like to continue along with this thread that I am on but blow it up. I did a window for Lululemon last year which was 13 feet by 8 feet and I thought the work scaled up really well. It was quite striking and I would like to experiment more with environmental art works.
What are the first things you look to for inspiration when starting a painting?
I have a childlike love of colour and texture. I study the forms that I am dealing with and try and respond to what works for them. I think using the shapes intensely in collage has given me an intuition about what to do with the shapes as paintings. I continually go to the masters of colour to see how they managed certain pallets or ratios for inspiration. I love Joseph Albers, William Morris, Frank Stella, Paul Klee but also artists like Sol LeWitt and Robert Irwin. I look to many of the talented people that I am around in Vancouver. Vancouver has a wonderful community of talent to tap into. It has been said many times but I think if you want to be an artist you have to be constantly collecting and studying the world around you. I also find inspiration in my husband’s photography and my brother, Dirk Seeliger’s beautiful woodworking.
There is a quote by Jim Jarmusch, the film maker that has always resonated with me in terms of where inspirations and ideas come from.
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to"
[MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]”
What is one thing in your home that makes you the happiest?
Well I was given a Propellor Meridian lamp by my friend Mackenzie that I adore and I love the book nook in my kitchen but if I had to choose one object it would be my book shelf. David and I gathered all of our books, which represent our lives apart and combined them on a book shelf that we had custom made for us which is essentially rectangles tessellated together. It takes up one wall of our house and it is beautiful to look at and holds many of our memories and stories.
What is one thing you are excited about in the Kabuni App?
The potential to collaborate with other designers, architects and artists is what makes it special. I think to be able to sample and collect ideas before a person makes a decision about what is right for them is super reassuring and helpful to any client. It is a collaborative tool that is meant to inspire.
How are you trying to make better homes for everyone?
I believe the home is a sanctuary that holds our most intimate needs and experiences. It took me a long time to learn how to make a house a home. Obviously I think having lush textures and colours in your home is essential, filling it with objects of beauty and character is important. Allowing the environment to feed and nourish you by both stimulating your senses and allowing you to unwind. In my teaching life and in my art practice I encourage people to trust their own sense of aesthetics and to create spaces and places that are healthy and good for them.
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