Clark Richert - "H. XE Periods," "Enneacon," and "Periodic Pyramid"

Growing up in a family of scientists, mathematicians and doctors, Clark Richert developed a fascination for exploring the underlying structure of the universe. His interest was further stoked in college by the ideas of Buckminster Fuller and architect Steve Baer and their geodesic domes. By exploring the shapes and shadows of many multidimensional objects, Richert uncovered profound connections that lead to one of his signature creations: a long running series of paintings depicting non-repeating tessellations in various forms. The connections also led to another series of paintings, one that proposed various ways to reshape the Periodic Table into a 3-dimensional form.

From early on, Richert’s love of geometry led him to explore increasingly complex 3-dimensional objects, known as polyhedrons. In working with both the triacontrahedron (a 30-sided polyhedron) and the enneacontrahedron (a 90-sided polyhedron), Richert was able to calculate what the 2-dimensional shadows of these objects would look like. This produced nonrepeating patterns that Richert turned into many beautiful works. In his painting Enneacon, Richert pulls back the curtain to show both the enneacontrahedron and some of the various shadow forms it creates as light passes through.

The Periodic Table of the Elements is a powerful tool that chemists have been using for over 150 years to understand the relationships and properties of the basic elements of matter in the universe. In Periodic Pyramid, Richert expresses one of his many concepts for reshaping the Periodic Table from a 2-dimensional structure to one using 3 dimensions—a concept he developed in conjunction with avid geometer Marc Pelletier. The columns (groups) and rows (periods) of the table are reformatted into the tiered pyramidic form in the lower left of the painting. In the heart of the composition, the first two elements, Hydrogen and Helium, are shown as the cores of concentric shells which add the connected elements in proper order.

In H/Xe Period, Richert again explores the potential of reshaping of the Periodic Table into 3 dimensions with stunning visual effect. In this case, he presents a lattice structure that centers on the first element, Hydrogen, and expands the connected elements out, via a close packed structural configuration, through the first 5 periods of the chart ending in the 54th element, Xenon. The various constructs in the painting show the full explorative process, including the Periodic Table itself, the basic shapes used to build the structure, and finally the lattice itself with atomic elements positioned at the vertices.