8 - 260 (lotto)

026

Oil, canvas

19.7" x 19.7" (50 x 50 cm)

Kyiv, 2013

Chessboard is an object known since ancient times. Certainly it is something more meaningful than just a field for playing chess. There were some strange marks on it in times when it was used for playing old Indian “Chaturanga” – first known chess game. Having typical matrix structure, it is easily recognized by its restrained geometrizm, symmetry and simple repeating pattern which clearly takes us back to some meaningful ornaments and visualisation techniques of ancient Eastern cultures. Chessboard itself is an image or a picture, or, more probably, a model .

One culd hardly be able to study chessboard by artistic means of arithmism, but there is a way to bring attention of the mind to its ancient mysteries. Chessboard can be viewed as a matrix for magic square 8x8, its numerical sums of verticals, diagonals and horizontals equal to 260 . This square is also known for a long time and corresponds to the sphere of Mercury in the “mechanics of Celestial Spheres”.

The numbers are set by small lotto drums arrayed on the cells of the chessboard matrix. These small numbered drums show that there are sume numerical meanings linked up with the usual forms of the material world that surround us. The resulting image is a hint that the chessboard may have some mathematical meanings behind, too. Composition and analysis of the respective matrix can slightly push towards the idea that usual things we are used to touch can have some other meanings – the meanings which are not at all obvious.