Martin Brooks

Martin Brooks merges mathematics and art through his ShapeVision technique, using original software to translate photographs into layered, vibrant compositions that reveal nature’s fractal patterns. His archival ink and paper prints, ranging from 20″ to 72″, balance abstraction and figurative elements, inviting viewers to explore complexity at any distance. Exhibited since 2019, Brooks’s work engages public and private spaces with a unique visual language born of algorithmic precision and artistic intuition.ShapeVision Art is the result of my long research journey into math and code to capture complexity in natural phenomena. Growing up in an arts and science family, my favourite books were biographies of composers and mathematicians. At university, pure mathematics became the confluence of truth and beauty, leading to many years exploring the unknown by proving theorems and writing experimental software.

The classical ideal of smooth curves was upended in the twentieth century by pioneer mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry of nature, recognizing natural forms as jagged at all scales, large and small. Nature is not entirely random; real-world shapes are sculpted by complex processes that leave hidden regularities. In 2007 I was inventing math algorithms to reveal patterns in financial data, but a 2014 epiphany about meaning, time, and work drove me to quit my hedge fund job and begin creating new tools for visual communication.

My unique original mathematical ShapeVision software transforms photographs into a fabric of colourful shapes at multiple levels of detail. Play and experimentation lead me to compositions that expose shapes while communicating the whole. I am still learning new ways to use ShapeVision’s rich graphic substrate.

Exhibitions:
2019 Garden exhibition featuring six large pictures and a dozen smaller ones, created in collaboration with educator and painter John Spence and photographer Dawson Ross.
2020-22 Pandemic on-street succession of new ShapeVision pictures provided a Manotick neighbourhood with much needed human contact and conversation about art and life.
2022-2025 Six large ShapeVision pictures on display at Saint-Vincent Hospital (Ottawa), where I also work with a Recreational Therapist running patient group creation of ShapeVision collages.

Artist Statement

I want ShapeVision Art to be unforgettable and fascinating in public space, workplace, and at home. ShapeVision is printed art — archival ink & paper, 20″ to 72″ across, fine art frame. ShapeVision Art has no preferred viewing distance — beautiful from afar, captivating when close. Visual engagement is healthy for your brain; I try to make ShapeVision pictures as engaging as possible, across a spectrum from pictorial to abstract. There is a lot to see in ShapeVision Art.