Parc de Sceaux, France

Lynn Gessaman
Chromogenic Photographic Print
38" x 38"
2011

University Hall, Fourth Floor

Renowned photographer Lynn Geesaman is known for her work that explores the relationship between nature and mathematics. Trained as a scientist and mathematician, Geesaman seeks to reveal geometry in nature, saying: “I am not interested in nature itself. I am interested in shapes.” In gardens, parks, and landscapes around the United States and Europe, Geesaman reframes the natural world through a technical lens: rows of trees evolve into parallel lines, arches in gardens resemble ovals, hedges are rectangles. In a diffusion technique that blurs edges and in a style that merges abstraction with representation, her compositions are imaginative, dreamy, and hazy, mimicking the fluid boundary between art, science, math, and nature. 
 
Like so many of her photographs of formal gardens, this one is in the Parc de Sceaux, located on the grounds of a Chateau just six miles from the center of Paris. The town of Sceaux has restored gardens beside the 17th century chateau, which this photograph depicts.
 
Geesaman earned a BS in Mathematics and Physics from Wellesley College in 1960. Her work has been exhibited at major institutions such as The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and The Whitney Museum of American Art and leading contemporary galleries around the US.