Decoding the Infinite: Nelson Saiers’ Art of Numbers and Narratives Launches Exhibition at Canvas 3.0

 Stable by Nelson Saiers, 2024

Decoding the Infinite

By COCO DOLLE January 9, 2025

CANVAS 3.0 @ The Oculus, New York, NY

“A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems; … one can imagine that the ultimate mathematician is one who can see analogies between analogies.” This profound observation finds resonance in the work of Nelson Saiers, a polymath artist whose creations blur the lines between mathematics, art, and storytelling. From January 9 to January 23, 2025, Saiers will present his latest exhibition at The Canvas 3.0 in New York City. Nestled in the Oculus at the World Trade Center, the gallery will host a public opening on January 9 from 6 to 8 PM.

Saiers is not your typical artist. A math prodigy who earned his Ph.D. at 23 and later led a hedge fund, he now channels his intellect into art that merges mathematics, history, and pop culture. His approach embodies the ethos of building bridges between seemingly disparate fields, much like the analogy-driven mathematician referenced in the quote.

Saiers’ work invites viewers to enter a realm where abstract mathematical concepts transform into metaphors, analogies, and visual stories. “Math plays an important role in my work, often through metaphor or wordplay,” Saiers explains. “The symbols themselves can be quite beautiful and abstract, and math becomes a powerful tool for creating art.”

The exhibition features 15 pieces created over the last four years, tackling subjects as diverse as medieval history, Donald Judd’s minimalist sculptures, and the chaotic world of Game of Thrones. Despite its intellectual foundation, Saiers’ art is also imbued with humor, using pop culture references to ease the weight of its more abstract ideas.

Take Pointless Place, for example. The painting plays on the concept of a “pointless topos”—a mathematical construct whose name means place in Greek—juxtaposed with Lagado, a place from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels famed for its inane experiments. Completing the scene is Wiley Coyote, whose perpetual failures to catch the Roadrunner epitomize the futility of overengineering. “Wiley’s appearance adds humor to the story,” Saiers says. “He’s known for his elaborate plans, but they’re always pointless in the end.”

This playful tone continues in other works, such as a piece on stable homotopy theory—a branch of algebraic topology. Here, Saiers enlists the Tasmanian Devil, whose characteristic whirlwind becomes a sequence of mathematical symbols central to the theory. “The whirlwind resembles cursive e’s as you might see Cy Twombly scribble or maybe a long loop,” he notes, “Central to stable homotopy are spectra—sequences of CW complexes denoted by a sequence of capital E's that have particular properties related to their loop spaces. But it’s also just Taz, creating chaos and being anything but stable.”

What is Left (3) by Nelson Saiers, 2024

Beyond its humor, Saiers’ work is deeply thoughtful. Some pieces delve into historical volatility, such as the turbulence of medieval England during the 100 Years War and the War of the Roses. In What is Left (3) and Check, Saiers uses mathematical constructs like sheaf cohomology, the Cousin problems, and Čech cohomology to narrate these chaotic periods. The term “check,” referencing both chess and the uncertainty of the English crown changing hands six times in 30 years (typically between cousins), ties these elements together.

Stack by Nelson Saiers, 2024

Saiers’ unique background informs his ability to layer meaning into his art. After earning his doctorate, he became a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank before leaving finance in 2014 to pursue art full-time. His work critiques systems of power, from economic inequality to institutional justice, with mathematics serving as both a lens and a tool for exploration.

Saiers’ exhibitions span institutions as varied as Harvard University, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, and prominent New York galleries. His bold public interventions—like a nine-foot inflatable rat covered in Bitcoin references outside the Federal Reserve—have made waves for their wit and commentary on financial systems.

The Canvas 3.0, a gallery renowned for merging physical and digital experiences, provides a fitting stage for Saiers’ thought-provoking work. Known for collaborations with cultural leaders like Rolling Stone and Meta, the venue amplifies the exhibition’s intellectual and aesthetic allure.

This exhibition is more than a collection of paintings; it’s an exploration of how art can blend the playful with the profound. Saiers invites us to see the beauty in abstraction, the humor in complexity, and the stories hidden within mathematics. His art is a call to look beyond the surface, to find analogies between analogies, and to discover connections that transcend disciplines. For those seeking art that surprises, provokes, and delights, this exhibition is not to be missed. WM

Exhibition on view from January 9 to January 23, 2025