Charles Pegge












As one of the Pembrokeshire returnees I came back to Fishguard after spending too long in electronics and computing. I started painting in my early teens but never considered art as a career and opted for sciences instead. I more or less finished doing computing as a profession in the mid 90's and spent a few years catching up on artistic pursuits.

Most of my work is imaginary and fairly abstract inspired by biomorphic and musical themes as well as the diversity of landscape and atmospheric conditions of Pembrokeshire. I find that my work has become freer and more rugged and has lost some of its fixation with detail . I dont use stylus pens and fine brushes as I used to. Digital technology does this far better, leaving the painter with more rugged media to play with

The contemporary ideas that inspire me most are evolution, chaos theory and quantum physics, and of ancient philosophers: like Lao Tsu, founder of Taoism. My favorite period in Western Art is the first half of the 20th century, particularly the work and ideas of Kandinski and Klee for their synthesic qualities, and Bonnard for his liberated and sensuous colour.

Inevitably the Web has drawn me back into the technical side of computing, in the form of programming language development. This has its own kind of abstract beauty of logic and maths - quite hard to grasp for those who are not directly involved in it. But the brain cannot handle abstractions in isolation, it has to derive its symbols, ultimately from the physical world, which we are evolved to deal with.



Geodesic Domes and Faces of the Sphere


9th-28th October 2008
An exhibition of paintings, polyhedra and dome models
Nant-y-Coy Arts, The Watermill, Trefgarne Gorge Pembrokeshire, SA62 5LR. UK
http://www.nantycoy.co.uk
gallery@nantycoy.co.uk

Spherical structures provide the largest volume for the least surface area. They distribute forces very evenly over their surface structure, making them the ideal form for energy efficient buildings, a prime example being the Biomes of the Eden Project.

Geodesic means 'shortest distance between points on the globe'. Buckminster Fuller applied this term to his dome structures - dividing the surface into a set of facets, most often triangles, in the form of a framework of struts and nodes covered by a membrane or flat panelling. By systematically dividing the surface of the sphere - large complex domes can be built with a small number of component types. For instance a dome with 90 facets can be constructed using only 2 types of panel. (or 3 sizes of strut). This enables components to be accurately and efficiently produced offsite.

In more recent times these structures were discovered in nature at the molecular level, with spheres of carbon atoms - one of the commonest, known as C60 is a structure of 60 atoms - one a each node forming a structure of hexagons and pentagons - like a football. But larger structures exist too: C80 .. C240 and beyond. As a family of molecular structures they have come to be known as 'Fullerenes' or 'BuckyBalls'.

Departing from the more 'Platonic' forms can involve some fairly extensive 3D trig calculations - best done on a computer and visualised on screen. This enables the base, height and number of faces to be developed interactively - One of my longer term goals is to produce a system to do this and simulate the physical characteristics of the structures dynamically. Some of the domes on display were designed using a rudimentary form of this software. You can also see some 3D examples on screen at: http://www.pegge.net/3d/list.htm

Exhibition Views









Personal History(-2008)

I was born December 1955 in Inverness, I spent my first 6 years in the highlands, where my Father, a civil engineer worked on hyrdoelectrics. After spending 2 years in Lutterworth in the Midlands, we moved back to South West Wales where my parents have long family roots. I was exiled to prep and public school in Shrewsbury. I went at a time when the more brutal aspects of public school life were being rapidly replaced by a more cultured and reflective regime which supported excellent science, arts and craft facilities. In particular, I owe much to the art master John Alford for his insights and encouragement. I went to Oxford in 1974 to read Plant Biology. There I became interested in Transcendental Meditation. and after graduating in 1977 went on to work for the organisation for several years.

I took an interest in electronics and after an initial spell in printed circuit board design, I did some microprocessor work for GEC Electrical Projects - Marine, then Porpoise Viscometers in Rugby. After this, I worked for Intermediate Technology, a Third World development organisation founded by F Schumacher, (Author of 'Small is Beautiful'), looking after computerisation including software and database development.

I started painting again and moved back to Fishguard in 1998, to a house near the coast path , and close to where I was brought up. I spent some of my time assisting Myles Pepper at the West Wales Arts Centre, where I had the pleasure of plying some of my IT skills as well as painting.

In the late 90's I bacame interested in 3d digital graphics and how it could be applied to architecture - as well as purely imaginary structures. After tentatively planning an extension to my house with an architect friend, (and getting a taste of planning controls) my attention turned to the work of Buckminster Fuller. In particular his Geodesic domes. This became my millenium project. Grasping the geometry of these structures with limited maths skills took quite a while but after a few years I was able to model these both manually and in digital 3D. The main problem was to divide the curved surface into perfectly fitting flat squares, hexagons and pentagons.

I built some of these as frames, using very simple materials: 100mm*22mm planks of timber screwed together to form flat frames which were 'stitched' together with interlocking screw heads. But there are so many designs to explore that most of my models remain on the computer but, I have made a selection of these as cardboard models.

Apart from Geodesic domes, my long standing interest is in computer languages which stems from early encounters with various home computers like the Commodore PET and the BBC micro. - I have developed an assembler for the PC called 'Oxygen' for writing very high speed code. In its current form this is deployed as a module for thinBASIC, a free interactive system for programming in BASIC. Our informal team enjoys the benefits of working collaboratively over the web for very rapid development.
















In the Grass


Hypnogogues


Dragon


Energy Lines
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Dragon


Energy Lines