Swirls, Whorls, and Tendrils

A portfolio of abstract patterns of dispersive structures of a single ink drop in water.

Each ephemeral form is unique, surreal, and exquisitely beautiful. Since these are lifesize macros, many of the fine details are literally invisible to the naked eye. The images reveal what looks like "organic" life-forms, that develop as though some hidden “rule” (or genetic code) is guiding their evolution.

Tellingly, even as each delicate form is “perfect” onto itself, what starts the whole process going, and what is most responsible for the diversity of patterns, is imperfection. It is because the ink drops are not perfect spheres, because they assume a variety of randomly distorted oblong shapes as they fall, and because they have unpredictable and shifting densities of ink inside of them, that each sequence is a unique creation that unfolds just once, then vanishes forever.