Music of the Spheres, Series I

Born in Pakistan and brought up in Lancashire, Halima Cassell’s (b.1975) multi-cultural background is tangibly present in her work. For this piece she carved brick clay from the North of England. Clay is a material she believes unites us despite our different identities, since ‘we’re all made from clay and we’ll all return to clay when we die.’ Cassell’s patterning is reminiscent of the fractal and spiral geometries found in the natural world, from the arrangement of petals on a flower to the fractals of a Romanesco broccoli. These same shapes are among the oldest art forms known, including the sacred geometries of Islamic art and Romanesque and Gothic architecture. The title of the work references Pythagoras’ ancient philosophical concept of celestial harmony created by the ordered spacing and proportions of the planets.