The {Empty Set}

The empty set, therefore, is the possibility of something; the endless possibility of something impossible.
Sophie Dixon
November 29, 2011

Overview

There is something very interesting about the concept of ‘emptiness’ in relation to the art of printmaking. Printmaking, by its nature, relies just as much on its positive elements as it does on its negative, ‘empty space’ elements. Its very essence lies in deciding what to remove; what to make empty.

In mathematics, the ‘empty set’ is the “unique set having no numbers”. It looks like this: {  }. According to D.J. Darling’s The Universal Book of Mathematics (2004), the empty set is not nothing, but rather "the set of all triangles with four sides, the set of all numbers that are bigger than nine but smaller than eight, and the set of all opening moves in chess that involve a king". The empty set, therefore, is the possibility of something; the endless possibility of something impossible.

The same might be said for artist group The {Empty Set}, comprised predominantly of graduates of Griffith University's Queensland College of Art. They are Gwenn Tasker, Alex Gillies, Karen Kase, Heidi Stephens, Ann Roworth, Carolyn McKenzie-Craig, Louise Irving, Belinda Sinclair, Kathryn Danger Sawyer and Ky Curran. "Transience, fragmentation, dissolution, ritual, hybrid forms, myth, magic, new cosmologies and the undead are some of the soft fruits of metamorphosis that inhabit the liminal landscape and are some of the themes explored by the artists in The {Empty Set}.”

Working in print and paper, this exhibition will showcase the set’s diverse contemporary talents across a wide range of media including installation, video, jewellery and artist books, demonstrating the place for printmaking in cross-disciplinary practices.

Image credit: Belinda Sinclair - “Wolfberries for the Goldwitch”, courtesy of White Canvas Gallery

Information

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