Keith Tyson: 'Nature is better at painting than I am'

Tyson says it's purely coincidental that his paintings end up looking organic: like a geological formation, a collection of tissues on a medical slide or an artist's impression of a black hole.

The title of this work refers to the way he creates the art, he says, rather than what it ends up looking like.


"Nature does its stuff instantly, at all scales, everywhere. There's no part of the painting that can be lazy. It all has to obey the laws of physics," says Tyson.

"You zoom into them and they retain their level of detail, but with a painting done by hand you can always get down to the brush marks. The paintings look as good close up as they do far away.

"Nature's better at painting than I am."

Tyson's "Nature" paintings are part of his exhibition Cloud Choreography and Other Emergent Systems, showing at the Parasol Unit gallery in London until 11 November.