Beauty is the first test

This exhibition at the Pump House Gallery in Battersea Park explores the link between crafts and maths and extends to four floors of this light and airy gallery space. At the private view on Tuesday, Liz Cooper, the curator, gave a guided tour of the exhibits explaining the background to some of the pieces and why she had chosen them for the exhibition. Playing with counting, colour or pattern were common factors. Many of the pieces, such as Janette Matthews’ laser cut silk and Ann Sutton’s embroidered squares seemed to be formed from precise mathematical shapes but incorporated a looseness of construction that gave them increased depth. Lesley Halliwell’s spirograph shapes (shown here) also showed the makers hand as her pen ran out mid-pattern, while her series of formal patterns were produced on the insides of used envelopes, contrasting the rigid and the informal. Michael Brennand Wood’s floral patterns (shown here) also combined formal patterns with a riot of colours and floral shapes.

Mathematics underlies many of our craft processes, just think of counting and patterns, but we often incorporate them instinctively without conscious thought. As a textile practitioner this exhibition made me reconsider how interlinked maths and crafts are and how often one depends on the other. In the words of the mathematician G H Hardy, from whom the title of the exhibition originates, ‘Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics’.