River City 2024 - Artwork Exchange

I find it fascinating how the currents in rivers appear to reverse or flow upstream whenever the water flows past immovable objects. This area is called an eddy and it is a circular flow of liquid which forms temporary whirlpools against the main river flow.

Sitting next to a river, I found inspiration in watching the river eddies.  This interest grew when I discovered that they were first described by Archimedes in 246 BC. Eddy flow principles are part of the science of fluid dynamics which has broad reaching applications in aerospace, civil, chemical and biomedical engineering, as well as geophysics, oceanography, meteorology, astrophysics and biology.

So I have been inspired by the history as well as the broad reaching applications of this small thing called river eddies. I have tried to create the feeling of actively flowing water by downloading images based on fluid dynamic studies which I then painted onto silk-cotton voile an machine and hand stitched.