This new work entitled, ‘Principia I, II & III’, is a meditation on the ‘Universe’ in continuing with the theme of recent works such as ‘The Sea of Untold Stories’, ‘The Dunhuang Star Atlas’ & ‘Mapping the Heavens’, each of these artworks considers our place within the wider cosmos trying to fathom the bewitching beauty of it all, following the passing of my mother, in 2018. My inspiration has been star maps, both, ancient and new, which have charted the heavens from early cultures to the present. They are a wealth of imagery that speaks of how we see ourselves wrestling with Plato’s edict:

Who am I

Why I am Here

Where am I Going

The research for Principia draws far and wide particularly the residency at Kettle’s Yard Gallery, University of Cambridge, UK, (Oct 2019). I was fortunate to be given access to several campuses, including the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Wren and University Libraries. At one stage, I was able to study the handwritten notes of Isaac Newton’s ‘Philosophia, Naturalis, Principia, Mathematica’, which he made ahead of the publication itself in 1687. The hand-made paper is identical to Rajasthani hemp fibre paper that I use daily, a tradition that continues in India, but long since passed in Europe. The ink (possibly gall or oak) is similar to the dhumsa brown ink I also use, a strange conversation in materials between an artist and scientist across many centuries. The text is Latin and English and like all notebooks written hurriedly as if the thoughts need to be pinned down before they escape, jostling with scratched and scared numbers that I do not understand. I have worked with historical documents over the years but all have been personal rather than collective, so this is a new territory, the unsettling reality of today was forged by such notes, Principia (as it is more widely known) remains a seminal mathematical work whose numbers would take us to the moon a few centuries later.  

The book itself illustrates Newton’s three laws of motion laying the foundation for our understanding of gravity. From which Albert Einstein would later give us E=mc² in his most important works published between 1907 and 1915: The General and Special Theory of Relativity. If Newtons explained how the motions of the heavenly bodies moved then Einstein told us ‘why’. E=mc² states that energy (e) and matter (m) are interchangeable. Much like currencies (dollars for pounds and vice versa), in which the ‘exchange rate’ is the speed of light (c²). In other words, space and time (space-time) is relative or as Einstein would have it ‘malleable’. Light, as it travels through space, is subject to gravity as the density (mass) of an object (such as a planet) causing it to distort or curve. Einstein described space, time & gravity as the warp and weft of a fabric, an analogy (and image) that I and many others outside the scientific field, can actually grasp. 

I had been looking at textiles for some time particularly the lace ‘Pichvaias’ found in Nathdwara, Southern, Rajasthan[1]. Lace and its intricate threads seemed to neatly illustrate how such gravitational principle’s work. Lace patterns are generated by the repetition of one shape, such as a hexagon. The shape continues throughout the design connecting one part to another. However, because the shape is made from a single thread, it has to join a cluster of threads every few millimetres; otherwise, the design would not hold. These cluster joints act as islands were many threads congregate to form a solid body allowing the design to cover large areas. As the design grows, the shapes retain their integrity but become stretched and distorted, pulled between opposing clusters. Gravity works in the same way space-time literally stretches by the mass of an object greater than itself.