Intersections

A Public Art Exhibition

A diagram displaying the word 'intersections' in large orange letters across the middle, overlaid on a background of intersecting color-coded lines with letters representing different points or lines in a graph.
A young person with shoulder-length curly brown hair, wearing a pink baseball cap and a light-colored jacket, smiling outdoors with greenery and a brick bench in the background.

Elliot Kienzle

By day, Elliot Kienzle is a mathematics graduate student at University of California, Berkeley, studying geometry and mathematical physics. By night, Elliot is a mathematical illustrator. They started art as an undergraduate, drawing slides for presentations. Now, Elliot renders advanced mathematics on a page, including topics on the cutting edge of research. Elliot uses an interactive, artistic approach to teach math. Last year, Elliot ran a course on math arts and crafts, designed to give a hands-on understanding of differential geometry and curvature.

Artwork

A colorful illustrated infographic titled 'The Mirror Symmetree' depicting a tree with branches representing various mathematical concepts and categories, with labels and annotations related to geometry, topology, and algebra, set against a background of blue sky and grassy landscape.

The Mirror Symme-tree

Digital print
25” x 30”

$500

The mirror symme-tree is a portrait of the field of math known as mirror symmetry. In the search for a theory of everything, physicists discovered mirror symmetry which posits that two different physical theories are dual to one another. For mathematicians, this duality builds an unexpected bridge between unrelated fields of math.

The mirror symme-tree illustrates the mathematical structures and relationships from the eponymous field. Physics acts as an organizing structure, represented by the tree's trunk and branches. The mathematical critters live atop the tree, and objects related by mirror symmetry are mirrored across the center of the tree. Try choosing an object and following the arrows in the tree like a flowchart.

This piece was commissioned by a mathematician to illustrate his research program. The critters in the symme-tree and their relationships were nurtured for 30 years by the surrounding research community. Every mathematician has their own tree, a vision of how the critters live together and where the new branches will go. Their canopies densely intertwine, forming together the great forest of mathematics.

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