Avenue 12 Gallery is proud is present Eric Carson | Flores Unum | Mapping the One Fractal, a compelling solo exhibition including acrylic and gouache works on canvas and board, as well as digital prints and 3-dimensional objects.

Flores Unum refers to this one blossom that is our universe. And Eric Carson has set about the task of nothing less than mapping the one fractal that is the visual expression of all that connects us. He appropriates the sacred geometries of mandalas and icons, the fractal geometry of nature, and the format of scientific illustrations to harness the torrent of images and relationships generated by contemporary life.

We are exposed to more than one thousand images a day and this field of images becomes the background of daily experience, forming a rich though often unrecognized habitat of information. We have learned to process our image-saturated culture with a technique known as visual hyper-literacy. Carson depends on this visual hyper-literacy to move the viewer through his compositions and to pit ideologies against each other. Not so much as to dictate a single answer but hopefully a constellation of answers. These constellations are spaces of wonder(ing), spaces where competing ideologies can exist simultaneously, and hints of new ways of being in the world coalesce.

Inside Carson’s dense symmetrical compositions, called Cosmographs, are symbols, text, and materials from multiple systems of knowledge. The systems collide and yet the result is focused. A mandala’s radial symmetry and an icon’s anthropomorphic symmetry induce a calm but intense visual experience. This experience is a crucial safe space where contradictions can be exposed in a way that invites critical investigation. Images visualize nameless impulses and build on known fractals to imagine an extra-dimensional whole.