Artist Randy Cezan extracts form from chaos

“The title of my [work] was taken from one of the early Hubble  images I encountered, ‘Large Interacting Galaxies’.” Cezan’s artwork captures the elegant clockwork dynamism of the universe – but conjures up a myriad of forms found in nature as well. His sculptures are informed by investigations of the environment in which he discovered “micro and/or macro examples of repeating patterns in nature.” For example, pieces of driftwood found on the beach at Pt. Defiance for him evoked meteorological associations: “The spiraling intermingling of wood grain was reminiscent of eyes, multiple funnel cyclones, as well as cloud formations.”

The mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot coined the term “fractal” to describe such repeating forms: “I conceived and developed a new geometry of nature and implemented its use in a number of diverse fields. It describes many of the irregular and fragmented patterns around us, and leads to full-fledged theories, by identifying a family of shapes I call fractals.”

Cezan’s sculptures will eventually be mounted as mobiles; stunning behemoths with convex curves and concavities that suggest dinosaur skulls, helixes, vortexes and of course, massing stars and galaxies. Their powerful forms seem already to move of their own internal force. Carved from polystyrene and measuring 20ft. across and 15ft. high, the trilogy weighs just 100lbs.

Cezan says Large Interacting…illustrates a theory about social engagement as well as science and geometry. “My comment is how human interaction even in its mildest forms involves change in the people who genuinely interact. You can think of these shapes starting as regular spiral galaxies until gravitational pull distorts their uniformity. I propose that something similar happens when people interact: Neither party comes out unchanged. When one is open and listening, the ideas, opinions, and emotions of another register and create change, whether mild or profound.”