MOIRA CHAS
Projections of the Klein bottle
The Simons Center Gallery
April 12 – June 2, 2023
Curated by Lorraine Walsh
The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics is pleased to present artwork by Moira Chas, Professor of Mathematics at Stony Brook University. In this exhibition Chas explores aspects of the Klein bottle, a mathematical object that still offers secrets to reveal.
Essentially, Chas’ artwork is a handmade invitation to the math world, addressed to people of all ages and levels of knowledge. She hopes that through the interaction with her art—discussing or thinking about their visual properties—the public will be led one step closer to understanding mathematical ideas.
As part of a continuum that includes Chas’ writing, mathematics research, and teaching—her artifacts combine yarn and wire, cloth, and even zippers, to illustrate mathematical objects, questions, or theorems.
Featured in the gallery are Chas’ recent artistic productions utilizing a wire looping technique, similar to that used by American sculptor Ruth Asawa (1926-2013). A single elementary process is repeated many times until the multiple iterations form something anew. In this work, Chas strives to make some of these abstractions more tangible, revealing mathematics, and topology, to the world around us through art.
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Dr. Moira Chas was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she attended college. After completing her PhD in Spain at the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona, she travelled to New York for three months and never left.
She won the 2017 Godfrey Teaching Excellence Award (granted by the Stony Brook College of Arts and Sciences), First Place in the 2018 Mexican Mathematical Society “Matemáticas y Letras” competition, and the 2014–2015 Science Playwriting Competition at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.
Hours: Simons Center Gallery: Monday- Friday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm.
Closed Saturday, Sunday, and Holidays.
Contact: gallery@scgp.stonybrook.edu
Directions: https://scgp.stonybrook.edu/about/directions
