Plexiglass Sculptures

These sculptures were created as a part of a self-directed “summer internship” graciously funded by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, physics department, in whose lobby they now live. Inspired by an example in the Mathematica documentation for the SliceContourPlot3D function, they depict 3D surfaces as their individual level curves painted onto Plexiglass plates mounted on metal rods with spacers separating them. The functions were first plotted in Mathematica, exported to Adobe Illustrator for editing, and then etched into Plexiglass using a laser cutter. The masking film covering the area to be painted was then removed, lightly sanded, and primed with clear gesso. The color schemes were designed to be colorblind accessible so that, for a colorblind student, the colors will appear to have the same spacing as for someone with normal color vision. Once these colors were chosen, swatches were printed off using a photo printer and taken to a home improvement store so paint samples matching the swatches could be made. After being painted and given a protective clear coat, the edges of each plate were sanded, the masking film finally removed, and the plates then mounted on the rods in the proper order.