shellacked paper and collage 14”h, 13” 2020
From the end of the 16th century, nautilus shells from the Indo-Pacific Ocean were imported into Europe on a regular basis, where they were admired for their exotic origins and geometric perfection. They were seen as proof of the convergence of the bodily world (the focus of invertebrate zoology) and the spiritual world (embodied in mathematics). This object riffs on these bibelots by incorporating man-made machinery as a support for the natural artifact.