Notation No. 12: Black Star Grid

The structure here is strict: a thin white grid on a black ground, running edge to edge, dividing the surface into roughly two hundred small squares. Inside each square sits a single white star — a small mark made of crossed lines radiating from a center point. No two are identical. Some are tight and precise like a plus sign, others are looser with five or six arms, others are barely there — just a faint scratch. The grid cells themselves shift slightly in size across the surface, with subtle warping that makes the whole thing feel like it's mapped onto a curved surface rather than lying flat. The effect is somewhere between a star catalog and a textile sample — every unit follows the same rule, but the execution drifts. Part of The Notation Studies, where each piece starts with a field and builds marks into it. This one is the most systematic entry in the collection. It has a repetitive logic that should feel monotonous but doesn't, because the variation in each cell keeps pulling your eye from square to square. It's the kind of piece people walk up to. From across a room it reads as a dark, finely textured surface; up close it becomes a catalog of small differences.