Lynn Hughes Tentative Equations
© Lynn Hughes, 1995
Opening on Saturday, February 18, at 4 pm
« I want this to be an arrangement for bagpipes and harpsichord sometimes and for sitar and bagpipes other times. (Duets that produce a third term).
This project was conceived in 1988 (just as my son was born). I wanted a way to associate the studies in the history of mathematics I had recently completed with a studio practice that had been a way of life for at least ten years. I wanted the academic side of me to make some sort of queasy peace with the painter. I sill valued and needed to connect it to the world again – and if possible, to a specific, even a local, world. I also wanted other things to connect, other borders to blur; women and mathematics certainly, painting and photography perhaps.
I set out quite deliberately to invent a structure that would do some of these things in a relatively simple and straightforward way. To begin with, I sought out a number of Montreal women who are mathematicians. I asked them if I could take their photograph. Then each one gave me her favorite equation, which I researched and thought about it in as many ways as possible. After this, I tried to generate a painting that did more than illustrate the equation in some trivial way, and that was, at the same time, a painting I wanted to see for other reasons.
This is a juggling act ( ) but maybe I can keep the balls in the air for just long enough to… »
© Lynn Hughes, 1995
Lynn Hughes was born in 1951 and grew up in Africa and in Europe, returning to Canada in her early twenties. She has lived in Vancouver, Regina and Toronto but has made Montreal her home since 1978. She has exhibited regularly across Canada and has also had shows in Milan and New York. Between 1987 and 1989 she completed a graduate degree in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, with a concentration in the History of Mathematics. She teaches painting at Concordia University and her favourite food is sweet potatoes.