From Energy, Matter Emerges
James Holl, The Landscape Painter
DEDICATED TO KONSTANTINA GEROLYMATOU 1955 -2024
All natural phenomena emerge at a very small scale. The theory postulates that this threshold is called a Planck length. In essence, the Planck length is the threshold at which energy becomes the discrete units of quanta—the phenomena of which all of nature is made.
When we think of the scale of things, we generally measure what is large or small in comparison to the human scale, the size of ourselves. If we regard the 2.3358-meter height and width of the Electron Neutrino sculpture seen through the gallery window not to the human scale but to the scale of the Planck length, it may be the largest sculpture ever made by humankind.
Particle Point Collisions, painting series
A particle accelerator measures what happens to quantum particles when they collide near the speed of light. The result of these collisions never breaks the particle into pieces, for there is nothing smaller in the universe—instead, a transmogrification of particles occurs. What is measured from the collisions is the electromagnetic light of the particle showers.
These resulting images show a trace that gives evidence to the point. The trace is a line made by the direction in which the point passes in time. The elemental points—the condensation of energy—are too small to be seen. At its most fundamental, all of nature is dots (squares) and lines—points of energy imaged in time.
In the Particle Point Collisions paintings, this energy is expressed through form and color, which vibrate in the eye like music does to the ear.