Bio
Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors
Read about Jonty on Wikipedia
Jonty Hurwitz and Yifat Davidoff are internationally recognised for their pioneering work in merging art and science. Their work has become widely recognised both academically and in the media. Their art has appeared in Forbes, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and has been covered on Arte, CNN and BBC (click here for media).
Museums
2024 Museo Internationale del Barroco, Puebla, Mexico
2023, Macau Museum of Art (Permanent Collection)
2023, Wuhan Art Museum, Wuhan Biennale
2020, Science Gallery, Venice
2019, Puke Ariki Museum, New Zealand
2019, PThe Lightbox Museum, Woking, UK.
Parallel Lines - Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition,2018, Guangdong Science Center, China
2017, Science Center, Singapore (permanent collection)
2017, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry
2017, Liberty Science Center, New York
2016, Science Gallery at the Art Powerplant, Leipzig
2016, International Images for Science, The Royal Photographic Society, London
2015, Petrosains Science Museum, Malaysia
2014, Exploratorium Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception, San Francisco
2014, Fleet Science Center, San Diego
2009, Bentlif Gallery, Maidstone Museum, United Kingdom (first ever show)
Documentaries and Talks
CNN Ones to Watch Documentary
“Is this the World’s Smallest Sculpture?”
A documentary on Hurwitz’s Nano sculpture made by CNN featuring curator of the Tate Modern, Chris Dercon, sculptor Antony Gormley and BBC art critic Estelle Lovatt. CNN Ones to Watch shines a spotlight on the up-and-coming creative talents set to be the next big names in culture and the arts. Published online and on CNN International, March 2015.
Click here to watch.
TED Talk
The art and science of love. The World’s Smallest Sculpture.
Click here to watch.
Art & Design Awards
2o22, Sculpture of the Year Award, Cotswald Sculpture Park
2016, The Royal Photographic Society, Finalist, International Images for Science - in collaboration with Stefan Diller.
2015, Guinness World Records, The Smallest Animal Sculpture
2015, Guinness World Records, The Smallest Sculpture of a Human Form
2010, Gofigurative Art Prize, Peoples Vote, London, United Kingdom
2010, Arte Laguna Prize, Finalist, Venice, Italy
2009, Bentlif Art Prize, Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery, People Choice Award, United Kingdom
2009, Noble Sculpture Prize, Liguria, Italy
2000, New Media Age Nomination, Special Award for Innovation (Delve)
2000, IVCA, International Visual Communications Association, Nomination, Award for Innovation
1999, IVCA, International Visual Communications Association, Gold Award
1998, BIMA, British Interactive Media Association Awards (Delve)
1998, BAFTA Interactive Nomination, Best use of moving image (Delve)
Solo Exhibitions
2023, De Medicis Gallery, Paris
2014, Art and the Internet, Gofigurative Gallery, Hampstead, London
2013, Old Street Art, Gofigurative Gallery, Solo Show, London
2011, Noble Sculpture Prize, Italy
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023, Altered States Open Air Sculpture Exhibition, Shaw House, UK
2023, Beaulieu Sculpture Park, United Kingdom
2023, Watson Gallery, Edinburgh
2023 Lux Contemporary, New York
2023, Scope Miami
2023, Spectrum Show, Arushi Gallery, Los Angeles
2022, RHS Whisley, United Kingdom
2022, Cotswald Sculpture Park, UK
2019, SCOPE Miami
2019, Body & Soul exhibition, One Canada Square, London
2019, Parallel Lines - Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition, The Lightbox, Woking
2019, The Cotswold Sculpture Park, Cirencester
2019, ArtCatto Gallery at the Conrad Algarve, Portugal
2019, Lausanne Art Fair, Beaulieu Exhibition Center, Switzerland
2019, Canwood Gallery, Hereford
2018, Gallerie Art&Emotion, Luasanne, Switzerland
2017, SCOPE, Miami, USA
2017, ArtCatto Gallery, Portugal
2017, Kinetica Museum 10 Year Anniversary Exhibition, London
2017, Liberty Science Center, New York, USA
2016, Walton Fine Arts, London
2016, Opera Gallery, London
2016, Gallerie de Medicis, Paris
2016, Science Gallery at the Art Powerplant, Leipzig
2016, International Images for Science, The Royal Photographic Society, London
2015, Illusion Exhibition Malaysia tour with the Dublin Science Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
2014, Kinetica Art Fair, Truman Brewery, London
2014, Illusion Exhibition USA tour with the Dublin Science Gallery, San Francisco
2014, Illusion Exhibition USA tour with the Dublin Science Gallery, San Diego
2014, Threadneedle Prize Exhibition, ICA London
2013, Savoy Hotel, Unveiling of Kaspar the Anamorphic Cat sculpture, Solo show
2012, Kinetica Art Fair, London
2011, Tower 42, City of London, Solo show
2011, Art London, Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London
2011, Bloomsbury Art Show (represented by Arthur Ackerman Gallery), London
2011, Untitled Artists Fair, London
2010, Arthur Ackermann Gallery, London
2010, Art London, Represented by Arthur Ackermann Gallery, London
2010, Go Figurative Show, Real Broadgate, Broadgate Circle, London
2010, Go Figurative Show, Real Hampstead, St. Stephen’s, London
2010, Untitled Art Fair, London
2010, Arte Laguna Prize, Arsenale, Venice
2009, Lloyd Gill Gallery Christmas Exhibition
2009, Bentlif Gallery, Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery
His work explores the deeper questions in life by bridging art and science through the use of cutting edge technology.
“The glue between science and art is emotion.” - Jonty Hurwitz, TEDx Stuttgart, 2019
Brief History
Jonty Hurwitz is an artist, engineer and founder of the AI research company Daizy.com. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and spent his early life living in small hotels in rural towns in South Africa. He studied a B.Sc (ENG) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and worked as a full-time researcher at the University of Cape Town.
Following his studies Jonty travelled in India studying Yoga and wood carving, before arriving in London where he then spent many years in the tech world designing financial risk algorithms.
Jonty started producing sculpture in 2009 and now creates scientifically inspired artworks and anamorphic sculptures. He is recognised for the smallest human form ever created using nano technology.
Academic Citations
A simplified procedure for anamorphic sculpture, 2015. Ayoub, Manal Helal. International Design Journal, Volume 5, Issue 2, pp 317–326.[50]
Art on the Nanoscale and Beyond: Advanced Materials, 2016. Yetisen, A. K. ; Coskun, A. F. ; England, G. ; Cho, S. ; Butt, H. ; Hurwitz, J. ; Kolle, M. ; Khademhosseini, A. ; Hart, A. J. ; Folch, A. ; et al.[51]
Technology and the Arts: Current Works of Eric Whitaker and Jonty Hurwitz. International Science and Technology Conference (ISTEC) 2015, St. Petersburg, Russia. Written and presented by Mark Konewko, Marquette University, Wisconsen, USA.[52]
Nanotechnology Cleans Up, Carolien Coon, Physics World, May 2016.[53]
Appearance-mimicking surfaces. Christian Schüller, Daniele Panozzo, and Olga Sorkine-Hornung. 2014. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 6, Article 216 (November 2014).[54]
Cylindrical Mirror Anamorphosis and Urban-Architectural Ambience. Čučaković, A. & Paunović, M. Nexus Netw J (2015) 17: 605.[55]
Two Photon Absorption & Carrier Generation in Semiconductors. F.R. Palomo1, I. Vila, M.Fernández, P.DeCastro, M. Moll, Departamento Ingeniería Electrónica, Escuela Superior de Ingenieros Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Santander, Spain, SSD Group, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland.[56]
Anamorphic Experiences in 3D Space: Shadows, Projections and Other Optical Illusions. Symeonidou, I. Nexus Netw J (2016) 18: 779.[57]
The Magic of Anamorphosis in Elementary and Middle School. Marina Barreto and Diego Lieban, Proceedings of Bridges 2017: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture Pages 553–556.[58]
Numerical anamorphosis: an artistic exploration. Francesco de Comite and Laurent Grisoni, SA '15 SIGGRAPH ASIA 2015 Art Papers, Article No. 1.[59]
Sanat ve Tasarımda Anamorfik Görüntüler (Anamorphic Images in Art and Design). Bengisu KELEŞOĞLU, Mehtap UYGUNGÖZ, Anadolu University Art & Design Magazine, Issue 7, 2016.[60]
Between reality and deception: the anamorphoses in visual communication (Entre a realidade e o engano: as anamorfoses na comunicação visual.), FERREIRA (UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA, PORTUGAL), Helena. Visualidades, [S.l.], v. 14, n. 1, set. 2016.[61]
Drzwi Do Nowej Percepcji – Londyński Festiwal Kinetica Art Fair 2013 / Doors to a New Perception – The London Festival Kinetica Art Fair 2013., Letkiewicz, Marek. 2014 Annales UMCS, Artes. 10(2): 95–106. Retrieved 17 January 2018.[62]
Anamorphosis in the work of foreign artists at the end of the XX-XXI century (Russian), статья в журнале – научная статья, YOUTH BULLETIN OF THE ST PETERSBURG STATE INSTITUTE OF CULTURE, 2(6), pages 136–139,2016.[63]
Art and Science Education in Optics: From Multidisciplinary to Transdisciplinary (Arte e Ciência no Ensino de Óptica: Da Multidisciplinaridade à Transdisciplinaridade), Claudemir Batista, Edivaldo Lima, Universidade de São Paulo, e-Disciplinas, Sistema de Apoio às Disciplinas.[64]
A Geometric Look at 3D Illusionist Techniques. Rodrigues M.H.W.L., Grimaldi M.R., Rodrigues D.W.L. (2019) In: Cocchiarella L. (eds) ICGG 2018 – Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics. ICGG 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 809. Springer, Cham.[65]
Vračarević, Dejan (4 February 2021). СЈАЈАН ТРЕНУТАК У РАСКОРАКУ – мапирана пројекција у просторно ограниченим условима. Интердисциплинарне студије Универзитета уметности (Thesis) (in Sardinian). hdl:123456789/490.
Anamorphic projection on an arbitrary uneven surface, Cej, Rok and Solina, Franc (2020, Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenia[45]
Li, Danzhu; Van Der Veer, Gerrit C. (2020). "Supporting the Experience of Stakeholders of Multimedia Art – Towards an Ontology". Beyond Interactions. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 11930. pp. 3–15. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-46540-7_1. ISBN 978-3-030-46539-1. S2CID 218489981.
Beyond Interactions, 2019. JA Nocera. INTERACT 2019 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, Paphos, Cyprus, September 2–6, 2019, Revised Selected Papers.[46]
Baldacchini, Tommaso (2020). "A collection of microsculptures". Three-Dimensional Microfabrication Using Two-Photon Polymerization. pp. 429–443. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-817827-0.00011-4. ISBN 978-0-12-817827-0. S2CID 242635768.
Kaya-, Yunus (2020). "Sanatta Evrimleşen Bakış Açısı: 'Anamorfoz' ve Çağdaş Bir Uygulayıcısı Olarak Kurt Wenner" [The Evolving Perspective in Art: 'Anamorphosis' and Kurt Wenner As a Contemporary Anamorphosis Artist]. Journal of Turkish Studies (in Turkish). 15 (2): 1079–1099. doi:10.29228/TurkishStudies.42083.
Leighton, Benjamin, et al. "Inverting the Paradigm: From Art to Granular Science." Leonardo (2022): 486-492.
Zhu, Guang. "Application of Digital Technology in Future Sculpture Teaching." Cross-Cultural Design. Applications in Learning, Arts, Cultural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Virtual Reality: 14th International Conference, CCD 2022, Held as Part of the 24th HCI International Conference, HCII 2022, Virtual Event, June 26–July 1, 2022, Proceedings, Part II. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022.
Leopold, C., & Link, R. (2022, August). Viewing Matters. In ICGG 2022-Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics (pp. 276-287). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Shen, Z. (2022). How Can We Understand the Relationship Between Artists and Their Materials in the Production of Art Glass Through Modern Technology?. Art and Society, 1(3), 23-37.
Abouelnasr, M. M. (2022). IMPACT OF USING REFLECTIVE SURFACES ON SCULPTURAL DESIGN. Journal of Arts & Architecture Research Studies, 3(5), 227-243.
Pratt, L., Johnston, A., & Pietroni, N. (2023). Reflections on light: Developing new methods for producing anamorphic sculpture. Leonardo, 1-24.
YETİM, E., & ŞEN, D. E. Göz ve Bakış Diyalektiğinde Anamorfoz ve Zizek Perspektifinden Güncel Sanat Temsilleri Üzerine Bir İnceleme. Yıldız Journal of Art and Design, 9(2), 80-94.
Pratt, L., Johnston, A., & Pietroni, N. (2023). Reflections on light: Developing new methods for producing anamorphic sculpture. Leonardo, 1-24.
中津正樹, & 藤木淳. (2023). 身体的万華鏡: 鑑賞者と鏡作品の位置に応じて反射像が変化する万華鏡型作品の提案. 日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌, 28(2), 121-130.
Pratt, L., Johnston, A., & Pietroni, N. (2023). Bending the light: Next generation anamorphic sculptures. Computers & Graphics.
de Comite, Francesco, and Laurent Grisoni. "HAL Id: hal-01258727."
RONDEAU, L. P. (2023). MALLÉABILITÉS SPATIOTEMPORELLES: LE SOI MÉDIÉ DANS LE DISPOSITIF POST-PHOTOGRAPHIQUE.
About the work
Source: Wikipedia
Anamorphic Sculpture
Hurwitz has produced a significant body of work using both oblique (perspective) and catoptric (mirror) anamorphosis. In an interview with Christopher Jobson, Hurwitz explains his anamorphic inspiration as follows: “I have always been torn between art and physics. In a moment of self-doubt in 2008, I wandered into the National Portrait Gallery and stumbled across a strange anamorphic piece by William Scrots (Portrait of Edward VI, 1546). Followed shortly down the aisle by The Ambassadors (Hans Holbein, 1533). My life changed forever. I rushed home and within hours was devouring the works of M. C. Escher, Da Vinci and many more. In a breath I had found “brothers” in a smallish group of artists spanning 500 years with exactly the same dilemma as me. Within two months I was deep in production of my first work. My art rests on the shoulders of giants, and I am grateful to them.”
Anamorphosis in painting has a long history. The first known anamorphic sketch of an eye was found in found Leonardo Da Vinci’s note book (folio 35 verso a of the Codex Atlanticus) c.1485. In the mid-18th Century anamorphosis was also used by Jacobite artists to secretly depict images of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the wake of brutal English censorship. Hans Holbien in the 17th century brought anamorphosis into the mainstream with his masterpiece, The Ambassadors, which is held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Jonty’s pioneering concepts in art are recognized both in the academic world as a new genres, and are studied widely in academic curriculums.
In particular, Hurwitz is a pioneer in creating catoptric sculpture. Until the creation of his first work ‘Rejuvenation’, anamorphic sculptures are not known to have existed in art history. In his online talks Hurwitz explains that this is a function of processing power and that whilst it is possible to paint in a mirror, three-dimensional anamorphosis could only have come into being with the advent of powerful computers. Each of his sculptures involves billions of calculations using a series of algorithms derived from the irrational mathematical constant π.
Nano Sculpture
In late 2014 Jonty, broke ground in the art world for a second time, releasing a series of sculptures of his first love, made using Nano technology under the title of Trust. The “Nano Sculptures” went viral around the world were seen by an estimated 200 million people, partly through a documentary on Jonty produced by CNN International. This series of Nano sculptures captured the attentions of both the scientific and art community, being cited by journals such as Nature, Scientific American, Popular Science and Phys.org. Jonty was also awarded two Guinness World Records for the works.
Jonty’s first Nano Sculptures were inspired by the nineteenth century marble sculpture of Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova, part of the permanent collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris.
The sculptures are so tiny that they are invisible to the human eye, able to be placed on the forehead of an ant. Smaller details of the works are at approximately the 300-nanometer scale, similar to the wavelengths of visible light and are therefore near impossible by the laws of physics to see in the visible spectrum. The only way to observe these works is through a non-optical method of magnification like a scanning electron microscope.
To create these works Hurwitz collaborated with a team of over 20 people, including Stephan Hengsbach of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Yehiam Prior of the Weizmann Institute of Science, an art project centred in the world of academic quantum physics.
In an interview with Beautiful/Decay Hurwitz explains the philosophy behind the works: “As technology starts to evolve faster than our human perception is able to handle, the line between science and myth becomes blurred. We live in an era where the impossible has finally come to pass. In our own little way we have become demigods of creation in our physical world…. The Nano works that I present to you here represent more that just a feat of science though. They represent the moment in history that we ourselves are able to create a full human form at the same scale as the sperm that creates us in order to facilitate the creation.”