An interdisciplinary guide to the 20th-century Southern California–based artists who investigated phenomena from the realms of optical science, astronomy, aerospace engineering and math

The synergy between art and science is an age-old tale; artists throughout time, from Leonardo da Vinci to Beeple, have incorporated newly discovered scientific theories and techniques into their practices. The PST ART project Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science explores a particularly fecund yet underexplored period in the history of art and science’s cross-fertilization. The development of postwar industry and research in Southern California inspired a host of artistic innovations; for decades, abstract artists from the region experimented with color, form and mediums, variously employing ideas or procedures gleaned from the latest developments in physics, astronomy and mathematics.
Particles and Waves unites several generations of artists working in diverse materials and styles to visualize light, energy, motion and time. Boasting a gorgeous cover, the volume features a wide array of artists and topics, from Man Ray’s paintings of mathematical models to Lee Mullican’s computer-inspired abstractions, and from to the West Coast Minimalists and Light and Space artists’ (including Mary Corse, Fred Eversley and James Turrell) rigorous studies of light to Bettina Brendel and Helen Lundeberg’s investigations of scale through their paintings of subatomic and astronomical subjects.

Text by: W Patrick McCray, Camille Fremontier-Murphy, Jason Weems, Roger Malina, Matthew Simms