Lene Rose Gruner
During the 1980's the mathematician and artist Lene Rose Gruner developed a unique style of art, which, following a theoretical description of the technique in 1995, she named "Mathematics + Poetry = MAPO".
The pictures of Gruner are concerned with the art of closer examination. The artist confronts the observer with visual phenomena that cause him or her to repeatedly contemplate the visual process and the specific significance of images.
The works of Lene R. Gruner are connected to several different mathematical disciplines, such as, for example, set-theory or topology. In addition, actual mathematical problems, such as certain of those found in parquetry or in the investigation of 2 dimensional networks, are also illustrated. Previous investigations of these themes have been carried out by such notable mathematicians as Penrose, Euler or Gauß.
The interdisciplinary innovations of the artist herself, along with the poetic power of association of abstract images and the supporting effect of language, lead the observer on a journey of visual discovery.
Gruners works can be considered to be pictures in the fourth dimension on the basis of their abstract form. In her work the observer is doubly challenged: on the one hand the picture can be perceived from all four sides such that any formal ambiguity can be repeatedly interpreted in a number of different ways by each observer. On the other hand, the individual forms offer a multitude of new impressions through their compositions. The viewer is therefore able to interact with the picture, not only physically by walking around it in its horizontal position, but more so through the use of his or her personal world of concepts and experiences.
The various layers within the picture represent, through the presence of the abstract variety of form, an open, variable thought process, that is in no way limited in substance and artistic content by the perceived edge of the picture, but that has an influence on space, people and, in the broadest sense, on the structure of society. Through her work Lene Rose Gruner conveys lines of thought which allow the observer to discover his or her own personal universe through a recognition of the way in which the pictorial objects can be combined.
The artist Gruner is, without doubt, a fascinating protagonist of abstract art. However, because of its quite unique style her work cannot be grouped together, for example, with that of Guiseppe Arcimboldo, Max Ernst, M.C. Escher or Salvador Dalí. In contrast to these artists, observers of Gruners pictures experience no short-term entertainment by abstract forms seen from one or two perspectives. The pictorial intensity of the four different angles of view alone immediately forces a viewer into a lengthy interaction with the world of forms created by Gruner.
At the highest level her pictures offer a sensual trip through formal combinations and their associative power, into the endless riddle of the abstract. Lene Gruner developed MAPO-pictures, in which networks can be connected with one another. By this mechanism and by differential presentation, whether horizontally, vertically or at right angles, it is possible to find 2304 combinations and possible arrangements within just 3 MAPO-pictures. By looking at a new combination on a daily basis, a spectator has six years and 113 days of potential new visual possibilities available on which he or she can develop their creative powers.
Lene rose Gruners work is not only evidence of her graphic and artistic perfection, but rather it is simultaneously a reflection of the infinity of its formal, associative and linguistic form.
Dr. Andrea Wolter-Abele,
Art Historian