I have completed over 160 major public artworks during the last 40 years. The majority of these

projects were realized in collaboration with architects, design teams, engineers, landscape

architects and scientists. All of my artworks involve movement and change, often revealing

invisible forces and phenomena in the local environment. My intent is to offer viewers a window

into the mysteries of the nature.

I strive to blur the lines between art, science, nature and architecture. Beginning in 1982, I was

an artist-in-residence at the Exploratorium, the science museum in San Francisco founded by the

physicist Frank Oppenheimer. There I created a series of 35 interactive artworks inspired by

atmospheric phenomena, geological pattern formation and the dynamics of chaotic systems. In

1985, I founded my own studio, extending my interest in complex fluid dynamics into the realm

of architecture and landscape design. Since this time, I have collaborated with hundreds of

scientists, architects and engineers to create a body of work intended to increase people’s

appreciation and sense of wonder about the mysteries of the physical universe.

Over the decades I have learned that if you can engage viewers with the sheer beauty and magic

of natural phenomena you can begin to change their relationship with nature from thinking about

it as a resource to falling deeply in love with it. I was inspired by conversations with NASA

astronauts who were changed forever by seeing the Earth from orbit. The aesthetic experience of

seeing the beauty and fragility of the Earth against the backdrop of the lethal vacuum of space

converted many of these pilot/engineer/scientist types into deep environmentalists. This gave me

the idea that an aesthetic experience of the complexity and beauty and mystery and fragility of

nature can be deeply transformative.

My work has been acknowledged by a number of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship, a

National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt / Smithsonian Museum, an award from the

National Endowment for the Arts and a grant award from the National Science Foundation. A

sculpture I recently completed for Masdar City in Abu Dhabi was just chosen as the best public

artwork in the Middle East. Much of my current work focuses on sustainability and

environmental awareness. I am intrigued with creating artworks that offer windows into the

intricacy and beauty of natural processes with the intent of fostering a greater sense of

appreciation and stewardship for the natural environment that we are inseparable from.