Brent Collins

90 North Hwy 169,  Gower, Missouri, 64454
Phone (816) 424-3436
A sampling of Collin's work, photographed by Phillip Geller.
Some pointers to galleries representing his work:
LEOPOLD GALLERY
Ashland Hardwood Gallery

Early Work

For many years, Collins has created sculptures composed of saddle surfaces:

A _ B _ C

(A) Two-sided surface with "Cruciform Pattern", - (B) Twisted tower with 3rd-order saddles, - (C) "Spyrint".

A more recent sculpture is the "Hyperbolic Hexagon"

_

This shape can also be understood as 6-storey Scherk Minimal Surface, wound into a toroidal loop.
The wireframe above represents the central part of a 3-storey Scherk surface -- to give you an idea what it looks like.

(Another way to understand this sculpture would be a relative of a Costa surface.)

A Glimpse of Collins' Fabrication Methods

_

Armature for the "Hyperbolic Heptagon" and mockup for the "Saddle Trefoil"

Once the maquette proves that the envisioned geometric shape has merits,
measurements are taken of the beeswax model, and many individaul wood boards
(about one inch thick) are precut according to these measurements.
These boards are then stacked and glued together forming a rough first shape.
This composite is then refined into the actual sculpture.
Below are some stages from the creation of one of his 1998 sculptures.

The Creation of "Vox Solis"

_

_

Collaboration with Carlo Séquin

The Scherk tower can be given an overall twist before its ends are joined together.
For an odd number of storeys, we have to apply a twist that is an odd multiple of 90 degrees
to achieve proper closure. With seven stories and with a 90 degree twist this results in:

"Hyperbolic Heptagon" by Brent Collins
(Inspired by a discussion with Carlo Séquin)

Generalization of the Concept

There seems to be a large domain, rich with interesting configurations of such saddle surfaces.
To aid in the exploration of these various shapes, Carlo Séquin and his students
created a special purpose computer program, called the "Sculpture Generator".
This interactive tool can create many different shapes in just a few minutes:

The first shape shown is the result of a search for a minimal Scherk toroid with only 3 stories and with a 270 degree twist.
And here is yet another variant of this shape.)

Brent independently also looked for such a minimal toroid first found the following solution
shown from the front and the back:

_

Stimulated by pictures of Séquin's front-to-back symmetrical solution,
Collins then also created this second version of the trefoil toroid.
The two solutions are mainly different in the choice of the azimuth parameter.
Collins' and Séquin's solution differ mostly in the size of the central hole.

in color or in stereo:

The first major result of our collaboration


The first joint sculpture built from Carlo Séquin's computer blue prints.

Subsequent Work by Brent Collins

_ - - -
"Pax Mundi", a swept C-section on the surface of a sphere - - - and some variations of this basic concept by Carlo Séquin.

see also: Stelvio or Maloja by Carlo H. Séquin

BC -- recent collaborative work

Go to other Abstract Sculptures
Page Editor: Carlo H. Séquin