Maps
Sights - Sophie Woelfling
Our cities, our creations built to sustain and structure human life, mirror organic growth patterns present in the natural world. Maps, at their core, show the growth of these creations. There is often a definable starting point, a center, from which development expands, growing to hold, configure, and define space for humankind.
We see strikingly similar patterns in webs, vein networks in plants and bodies, cracks and fragmentation in stone, cellular structures, and insect wings. Map-like forms are omnipresent, and not exclusively human. In its own way, nature draws as our hands do—creating worlds, laying out pathways, defining spatial relationships. In its linework, one can almost make out the form of citadels, main streets and narrow roads, homes, rivers, and city fortifications. What can be found in this ‘city’ within a single leaf? Perhaps map-making is not an invention of humanity, but something unequivocally ancient and tied to the earth.
In much of my work, I explore these concepts. Inspired by these forms found within nature, I am able to construct other worlds, portals, and maps of spaces both undiscovered and loosely defined. Who, or what, built the space? Who, or what, inhabits it? When, and where? How deep does the space go? This ambiguity drives my making: creating ancient and abstract works of an indefinite, uncanny source.
