Stefanie Mandelbaum, an artist, mathematician, and West Windsor resident, exhibits a collection of her math-inspired mixed media collage, wall sculptures, and paintings at Plainsboro Library in April. The artist will be on hand to discuss the concepts behind her artwork at a reception on Sunday, April 21, from 2 to 4 p.m. The exhibit will be on view through Sunday, April 28.
“I live in two creative worlds that are inextricably intertwined: art and mathematics — with a tad of music thrown in,” writes Mandelbaum. “When I was 10 or 11, I fell in love with mathematics, with the wonder of picturing the non-visual, of ‘seeing’ what wasn’t there.”
The love of math came at an early age, and Mandelbaum has been incorporating it into her art for many years. “As a child, I loved to draw realistically and continued this all through college, where I often sketched the professor instead of taking notes and frequently pulled all-nighters ostensibly to finish whatever paper had been due the week before but in reality drawing whatever was in view,” she says. She graduated from Queens College with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and received a master’s degree in mathematics from Montclair State University and another master’s degree in sculpture from the Pratt Institute.
“For many years I taught mathematics and art history courses as an adjunct at Rider University, thoroughly enjoying both,” she writes on her website. “Concurrently, throughout the tri-state area, I gave hands-on art/math workshops for students as well as teachers, showing them the relationship between art and mathematics.”
Rider University gallery director Harry Naar coined the term ARThematics to describe her work at a solo exhibit at Rider in 1996. “It refers to artwork in which mathematics affects the selection of shapes as well as the overall composition,” writes Mandelbaum. “Mathematics sets a certain rhythm within the work. Colors are chosen that enhance the movement. Whether the work tends more towards realism or abstraction is less important than the rhythm and the color.”
Mandelbaum is a co-author of “ARThematics Plus: Integrated Projects in Math, Art, and Beyond,” a book targeted for teachers of grades four to six, based on some of the workshops she developed. “We plan to write books based on the workshops given for older and younger students as well,” she writes.
Mandelbaum has exhibited in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vermont, Mexico, Canada, and Russia. Her works are in several private, museum, and university collections. She is an active participant in West Windsor Art Council’s Autumn Arts Afternoons and has led workshops in art and math at the Plainsboro Library.
“The state of mind, the feeling I get when I do a mathematical proof is exactly the state of mind I’m in when I do my artwork,” she writes. “Each mathematical system has its own internal logic, its own consistency. In this respect, a mathematical system is no different from a painting, a sculpture, or a musical composition.”
Art Exhibit, Plainsboro Public Library, 9 Van Doren Street. “Art Meets Math,” a collection of math-inspired mixed media collage, wall sculptures, and paintings by Stefanie Mandelbaum of West Windsor. On view to April 28. 609-275-2897. www.lmxac.org/plainsboro.
