Santa Fe New Mexico

Redwood Cutting

This painting is a metaphor for introversion, fragility, and the mysteries and instability of the world’s existence; the tree of life gives birth to its downfall.

The presence of a butterfly emphasizes a variety of outcomes of events occurring in the world. Our world turned out to be more complex than LaPlass’ determinism allowed for.

The most insignificant events have far reaching consequences. In any given moment, a cause-effect relationship is maintained, but after some branching, the relationship is no longer perceptible. The flapping of a butterfly’s wings gives rise to a chain reaction of events in an unstable state. The picture displays the dynamics of the chaotic motion of three bodies in celestial mechanics. From its initial state, the system is brought to a rapid rotation, and at the same time slowly spirals toward the breaking point. Thereafter, the system moves to the lowest plane and slowly spirals to the edge, from where it bounds to the uppermost plane, and the cycle repeats. Since the breaking point- the moment of the bound - is unpredictable and random, this yields chaos.

The same laws are present in the hierarchy of living organisms and in society. A small, insignificant event, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, is sufficient to push society into a distinctly different state!