Geometric art provides a unique lens for understanding the world, combining precision, patterns and structures to explore both aesthetic and ecological ideas. In his latest series, The Planet is Screaming, Listen to Mother EarthSouth African artist Pierre Louis Geldenhuys uses folded silk, light and geometric principles to investigate humanity's relationship with the natural world. The series, which debuted at the 2026 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, demonstrates how contemporary art can educate, inspire and provoke reflection on environmental fragility and regeneration.
The timeless language of geometric art
Geometric art has endured across cultures and centuries, from ancient architecture and sacred patterns to modern design and digital systems. Its lasting relevance lies in its ability to translate complex ideas into visual order, using repetition, symmetry and proportion to create meaning beyond decoration. Geometry offers a universal language that transcends time and geography, allowing artists to explore concepts of harmony, balance and interconnection that remain deeply resonant in contemporary society.
In a modern context, geometric art continues to evolve as a tool for reflection and education. It provides a framework through which abstract ideas, such as environmental systems, human impact, and natural cycles, can be visually interpreted. By returning to geometric principles, contemporary artists draw on a visual tradition that is both ancient and future-oriented, demonstrating how timeless structures can be used to address current concerns with clarity and depth.
1. Listening to the Earth
This series encourages viewers to pause and observe the world around them, revealing both their vulnerability and resilience. By transforming attention into reflection, the work positions art as a tool for understanding complex ecological systems and the subtle signals they transmit. Rather than presenting environmental issues through urgency or alarm, the series invites a calmer form of participation, based on awareness, observation and responsibility.
2. Geometry as a visual language
Geldenhuys' practice encompasses theatre, fashion, geometry and textile abstraction. Drawing on Islamic mosaics, symmetry and repetition, her work illustrates how structured patterns can reflect natural order and interconnected systems. Geometry becomes more than a formal resource. It functions as a conceptual framework through which ideas of balance, fragility and interdependence are explored. In this way, the mathematical structure becomes a visual language to understand the rhythms of the natural world.
At the center of the series is raw silk, a material chosen for both its delicacy and its symbolic value. Each piece begins as a single uncut sheet, carefully folded to produce intricate, nearly endless shapes. Free-falling threads introduce movement and unpredictability, while illuminated light boxes give the silk an x-ray quality, revealing layered depth and complexity. The material itself becomes a metaphor for continuity, vulnerability and the delicate balance that exists within natural ecosystems.
The life cycle of the vine provides a key ecological reference within the series. In viticulture, pruning is guided by close observation of the plant, including the direction of the shoots, the history of their scars, and the flow of sap. Geldenhuys draws on this process to reflect on the Earth's own cycles of damage and recovery. The vine becomes a symbol of regeneration, suggesting that renewal is possible when care, moderation and attention guide human interaction with the environment.
5. Art as an invitation to observe
Rather than offering warnings or solutions, the series extends an invitation to observe and reflect. Hundreds of meters of silk threads trace patterns that resemble topographies, rivers, roots and faults. These visual references echo natural systems that are continually shaped by external pressures but remain adaptable and alive. Through this, the work educates viewers about patterns of growth, movement and repair, highlighting the role of mindfulness and responsibility in shaping a more conscious future.
About the artist
Pierre Louis Geldenhuys combines geometry, textiles and light to create visually refined and intellectually rigorous work. His practice explores the relationship between structure and organic imperfection, encouraging viewers to consider how material processes and spatial form can deepen understanding of humanity's connection to the natural world.
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