Client: Private Collection

Overview

Based itself in mathematical archetypes, Butterfly Effect recasts inborn rhythms and patterns found in the natural world. The apple plywood-made sculpture utilizes hyperbolic curves and grooves, at one time both evokes and externalizes the natural rhythms of things around us through its reference to Lorenzo attractor, a physics concept which demonstrates how a simple system of convective flow is defined by a set of differential equations.

Akin to Mooney’s iconic starburst structure, Butterfly Effect presents itself as a mathematically coherent object with a cylinder body and 12 jointed wing petals as hub-and-spokes, all of which take functional shapes and positions as counterweights to one another. Carved from laminated apple plywood, the sculptural mass spells out hidden geometric parallels and mimesis registered among natural and manmade objects.

Goals

Installed one of the Bridge Gardens, the sculpture condenses the elegance of floaty essence into a symbolic mass and greens the outskirts of a cityscape. It functions both as a meaningful public artwork and a leisure spot, welcoming audiences at all ages to play around and to walk inside and out.

The work calls upon natural elements and biodynamic forms surround us and sublimates them into larger-than-life public delights. Nature is distilled in the flow of forms. Mooney gives context to our place within the greater universal mass that surrounds us, calling upon our spatial experience with the matter around us.