Andrea Aldan Hauksdóttir

Zero in the Highest Plane

PET plastic, paint and thread

As Robert Kaplan, the Harvard Mathematics Professor and the author of the book on Zero states, “Zero is in your mind, however, not in the sensory world.” When we talk about the history of numbers in mathematics, zero is the relevant one which has the meaning of nothing however, to us, means everything. 

“Zero stands as far horizon beckoning us on the way horizons do in paintings. It unifies the entire picture. If you look at zero you see nothing, but if you look through it, you see the world.”

It’s the only number that is neither positive or negative. It sits in the middle, signifying a starting point, a pause before things start. It’s the beginning, nothingness, infinity, eternity.

Unity.

A closed circle. 

The shapes in the work have shown up in my creations for years. Organic, bodily forms that resemble eyes, ears, vulvas, uteruses. They float in the air, resembling the freedom I feel in my dreams where I’ve become an ethereal nothing, an observer of what used to cause me pain.

I can see, I can hear, I can sense. But I am not in my physical body. I’m a zero, I am nothing, yet I am everything. 

Finally, at last,

I’m at peace.

I’m free.