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Writer's picture意言社 Artistori

Review: Metamorphosis

A project by Art Preneurship young artists

The introduction of M.C. Escher to our Art Preneurship young artists is, some how or rather, I would describe as, "a way to connect what's painful in school to what's usually fun during art". How can Maths connect with art? That's their question.


Often, I would highlight to my students that Maths, Science and Art are actually working together in our lives, in our environment and in our world, they will just have to look at it deeper.


Art is not just about aesthetics, Art is information, Art is a way to communicate, Art represents knowledge and Art can ultimately transform the way we interpret. M.C. Escher is master of all these.



His works crafted a unique visual communication of patterns, puzzles and mathematics that can be sometimes playful, densed, complexed and structured. My young artists didn't really understand how M.C Escher and maths was involved at all until I showed them how he used polygons to work with tessellation and how tessellation could be an optical illusion that brings a viewer into different visual dimensions. In this project case, metamorphosis, showing the progress of transformation.


It was really painful for them to begin with papercutting of a hexagon. I wanted to show them, in geometrical terms, translation and rotation. The idea of how cutting one part of a hexagon and moving over to the other side just didn't work out at all but once they got the hang of it, they didn't say but I know they were convinced.


The regular division of a plane forming symmetry creates repeated patterns and that's where Maths meets Art. It can be just a mathematical symmetrical shape but Art creates the visuals to turn the shapes into subjects that repeats.


It took a few lessons for them to work out ideas and imaginations into drafts and eventually forming their own tessellations into metamorphism. In the case of HBL due to COVID-19, I am grateful and proud of those that put in effort to create after lesson hours.


Tessellation work by Ashley Chan:

Tessellation work by Zhang Huiwen:


M.C. Escher's Metamorphosis I,II and III showed them how little by little, progress and continous efforts creates results and with the introduction of more M.C. Escher's works, ideas and imaginations begin to grow instead of just pure tessellation into metamorphism. That's when I introduced another artist, Rob Gonslave, who was a fan of M.C. Escher:

Rob Gonsalves (1959 to 2017) was a canadian surrealist painter who published 2 books, Imagine a World and Imagine A Day. His works' style is also known as magic realism where his paintings define reality with a touch of magic.

Alpine Navigation defines 2 worlds where waves morphs into snow mountains and miniature sailing ships morphs into actual sailing ships and seats on the very high peaks of the mountains. His paintings are very creative and imaginative that arouses curiousity and interests with optical illusion. "Mind blowing!" is how I describe it.



Having gone through tessellation and metamorphism, our Art Preneurship young artists knows about the symmetrical relationships that will affect their creative journey. Their drafts are full of ideas, imagination and their childhood:

Taking a number of lessons and effort, let me present to you their world of metamorphism:


Pictures of their works are gradually uploaded on our Facebook page:


Please share this article. Thank you!


意言社 Artistori

用艺术表达语言,让语言丰富艺术

Your Story, Your Art达语言,让语言丰富艺术 Your Story, Your Art

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