Equation of Erosion

Equation of Erosion

This painting draws on another quatrain by Omar Khayyam, reflecting on the brevity of life through its three stages: birth, living, and eventual return to the soil from which we came. For me, this movement raises a painful question: if life is so short and suffering can be so consuming, what happens when we do not even have enough time to understand why we suffered, or why we found ourselves at the centre of this story? The figures move between states of presence and disappearance, allowing the same visual forms to be read in different directions — from birth towards death, or from death back towards birth.

Khayyam’s mathematical equations surround the poem, while Persian text occupies the centre and English translations appear across the four sections, bringing mathematical thought, poetry and lived experience together. The four sections follow the structure of the quatrain, with the figures becoming a visual interpretation of its story — a movement through birth, existence, suffering and disappearance. Equation of Erosion refers to the gradual wearing away of life itself and the unsettling possibility that we may disappear before we understand what our journey was for.