Paul Ditch – 6 of 17^35

6 & 12 of 17^35 are paintings from an ongoing series created by arranging small discs of coloured ice sheets of Perspex, which then melt and interact freely. The painting becomes an active interconnected system; sensitive to, and directly affected by, its environment. Composed of 17 different colours laid out at random in a grid of 35 points, this means that 11633549665058175578832094238737833478284593 individual paintings of this type are possible without a repetition. These works explore the nature of chance and control, confronting the limits of our understanding of complex natural systems, which are both incomprehensibly small, and unfathomably vast.