Almost Nothing / Almost Everything I
2020, pen and ink on Saunders Waterford 425gsm paper, each 30 × 30cm (40 × 40cm framed). Photographer: Document Photography.
Almost Nothing I
Almost Everything I
Almost Nothing I (detail)
Almost Everything I (detail)
Almost Nothing / Almost Everything I is a diptych that explores the relationship between the infinitesimal and the infinite through number. Each drawing is composed of numerals written by hand. Almost Nothing begins with a zero and a decimal point, followed by a sequence of zeros interrupted by a single 1, and continues beyond. The resulting number approaches zero without ever reaching it. In contrast, Almost Everything begins with a 1 followed by a sequence of zeros, expanding toward an immeasurable magnitude.
Together, the two drawings establish a tension between two limits: one approaching nothing, the other approaching everything. Though materially and formally similar, their structures diverge at the decimal point, producing radically different scales from nearly identical means.
A second diptych, Almost Nothing / Almost Everything II, extends this logic in a more reduced form, presenting each number as a single horizontal line.
Almost Nothing / Almost Everything I, installed at Dominik Mersch Gallery for Approaching Zero, 2020.