Demian Nahuel Goos Bosco

Universidad Nacional de Rosario
Rosario, Argentina

I create my work mainly to include it in my lectures. In my work, I try to represent complex and deep mathematical results in a visual and compelling way. The mathematical background is not evident and the untrained eye may miss that there is a mathematical reference in the first place. However, with sufficient guidance, the concept is generally understood.I frequently try to visualize mathematical beauty in a way that it can be perceived by others.

I mainly use paper board to reference Henri Matisse's "drawing with scissors". Since it was an artistic rebirth in an adverse situation, it represents perseverance, persistence and adaptability. These qualities can be found in most distinguished mathematicians who faced dead-end situations.

La Trahison de la Géométrie
35 x 35 cm
Paper board on PVC foam board

This work is inspired by René Magritte's "Trahison des Images". It depicts an apple together with a text written below: This is not an apple., identical to the text in Magritte's work, and: It's two., a new addition. It is a reference to the Banach-Tarski paradox, which states that one can cut a solid ball in finitely many slices in such a way that one obtains two copies of the original ball. While Magritte exhibits the difference between an object, its name and its depiction, this work does exhibit the difference between an object and its mathematical interpretation together with the mathematical limitations to represent reality.

The paper board is a reference to the late and fun-loving work of Henri Matisse, the drawing with scissors.

49 x 36 cm
Digitalized drawing on a jigsaw puzzle

If we consider mathematics to be a jigsaw puzzle, then we call the first pieces axioms and whenever two pieces fit together, we have proven a theorem. However, Kurt Gödel proved that mathematics is incomplete, that there are affirmations that cannot be proven. In other words: there are missing pieces in the jigsaw puzzle.

In the foreground we see a digitalized drawing of Gödel, in the background the introduction of Gödel's seminal paper in which he proves the incompleteness theorems. A missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle represents precisely this important result.

The irritating feeling of solving a jigsaw puzzle just to realize that a piece is missing represents the initial feelings of the mathematical community towards Gödel's results.