ABOUT US

Sweet+Shore is a creative and life partnership between artist Anne Penman Sweet and scientist Dr Jesse Shore. When they first started collaborating in 2013 Anne had already been exhibiting internationally for nearly 15 years (she is represented by Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London). Jesse had been the Senior Curator of Sciences at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney for many years and ran his own consultancy firm 'Prismatic Sciences'.

 

Their interest in an ongoing working relationship was ignited through their collaboration in the Art+Science exhibition at the Brenda May Gallery, Sydney in 2013. They then spent several years experimenting (with limited success) aiming to produce a cohesive body of work that reflected their individual perspectives, outlooks and abilities. Almost at the point of abandoning the project, they re-encountered the mathematically inspired drawings of the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, and they were suddenly struck by what they later called a 'geometric stream of consciousness'. Ideas, prototypes and paintings began pouring out of them. New methods and materials were rigorously explored and developed and new skills and equipment acquired to meet the presenting challenges. Very soon an entire body of work they called 'Geochroma' emerged.

 

The core of the 'Geochroma' paintings and sculptures represent their individual and shared responses to the complexity, intricacy and beauty of nature and the natural world: Jesse from a scientific and mathematical standpoint and Anne from her background in meditation and Eastern philosophy. These are mathematically and spiritually inspired artworks which reflect in an abstract, painterly manner the inherent geometry, symmetry and beauty found in nature: mineral crystals, honeycombs, snowflakes, the Fibonacci spirals of shells. It is this deep respect and reverence for the natural world and the wonders it contains that is the foundation of their work together.

 

Each artwork is created from detailed mathematical calculations and produced from multiple hand milled and individually painted aluminum composite geometric shapes. When dry and varnished the geometric shapes (a painting may contain as many as fifty separate pieces) are carefully arranged and positioned on a backing sub-frame and fixed in place. The entire process of creating a singular work of art involves many separate processes and can take several months to complete.