Haas Brothers | Mathemagical

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 10, 6–8 PM

For inquiries, please contact Kelly Woods:

kelly@boeskygallery.com

“There is math that determines how we circle the sun that feels so cold and soulless compared to my experience of the sun rising and setting. If we were able to see all of the processes that underpin our experience, we would almost certainly go insane…Beauty, then, is a veil that hints at but protects us from the maddening difficulties of the origin of things… It serves the purpose of drawing us to things without bludgeoning us with the why behind them.” 

– Simon Haas

Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Mathemagical, an exhibition of new sculptures and paintings by Los Angeles-based artists the Haas Brothers (b. 1984; Santa Monica, CA). Mathemagical, the artists’ fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, coincides with the presentation of Uncanny Valley, the Haas Brothers traveling mid-career museum survey—which originated at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI and opens this September at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX. 

Through their rigorous, innovative approach to materials, the Haas Brothers—twins Nikolai and Simon—illuminate the patterns of emergence that govern the natural world. Harnessing Nikolai’s creative expressionism and Simon’s aptitude for analysis and systemization, the Haas Brothers deploy their characteristic witty humor to draw viewers in before revealing the sophisticated technical processes and rich conceptualism that underpin their practice.  

Throughout their work, the Haas Brothers often employ systems they adopted from the realm of mathematics. Beginning with relatively simple forms, the artists then subject them to defined processes—adding paint or clay or wax or beads according to a precise algorithm—resulting in a series of complex, emergent patterns. Over time, the Haas Brothers have applied these same processes in using progressively more technical materials and complex forms at ever-growing scales. Their Accretion works, for example, began as small, ceramic vessels. Inspired by the layered accumulation process found throughout the natural world—in coral, in tree fungus, in cave formations—the artists brushed layer upon layer of wet clay atop the surface of domestically scaled vessels to create mottled, organically textured surfaces. The artists subsequently translated the process into paintings and cast bronze sculpture. 

With Mathemagical, the Haas Brothers present their most ambitious systematized works to date. For a new suite of Accretion paintings, the artists begin with simple, nostalgic landscape scenes. The artists then apply paint thickened with a custom acrylic medium—which the artists developed in collaboration with Golden Artist Colors—to the scene according to a reaction-diffusion equation, the same equation that describes how cells divide and grow or how a pattern of stripes and spots appears on animal fur. Using a defined color palette, this process dictates how the artists apply paint to the canvas, profoundly abstracting the scenes as layer upon layer of paint builds atop the surface. 

The Haas Brothers have also used the Accretion process to reimagine their iconic Beasts. Using the ceramic coil-based wax building process developed for earlier bronze Accretion sculptures, the artists slowly build layers of wax to produce a fur-like surface texture on the surface of their anthropomorphic personality portraits of friends and family. Casting the forms in bronze and finishing them with rich patinas, the artists transform their beloved Beasts into the most technically complex and sculpturally sophisticated expression of the Accretion process yet.

The Peach Tree—the largest work in Mathemagical—exemplifies a host of the systematic and technical innovations that the Haas Brothers have developed throughout their career. The carved stone base is an homage to their ongoing work in stone—and to their stonemason father. The tree’s bronze trunk is textured using the same Accretion process as the Beast works. The Venetian glass bead foliage was hand-beaded—according to a series of algorithms for creating perfect leaves—by the Haas Sisters of Lost Hills, a group of women from an agricultural community in central California who, over the course of nearly a decade, have learned the Haas Brothers’ particular beading technique. Through their ongoing partnership with the Haas Sisters, the artists engage in a social practice, creating an economy of work where none existed before. And finally, the tree is finished with intricately blown-glass peaches—which, illuminated from within—cast a warm, peachy glow across the room. 

Mathemagical embodies the capacity of systems to produce awe. In the hands of the Haas Brothers, these mathematically defined  algorithms manifest the transformation of the ordinary into the magical, the fantastical, the transcendent. “The Haas Brothers,” curator Brooke Hodge writes, “have created a comprehensive world for themselves—one that is magical and mystical…a world that feels like a complete cosmos, where all the works, techniques, and ideas come together.” With Mathemagical, the Haas Brothers offer a stark reminder that the very systems that define our universe hold the power to produce profound change—to make visible untold magic and yield boundless joy. 

ABOUT THE HAAS BROTHERS

The Haas Brothers have exhibited their work widely in the United States and abroad. Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley, their first major mid-career survey, debuted at the Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI in 2025 before traveling to the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; its tour continues at the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, and the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. Their work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX; the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; the Bass Museum of Art, Miami FL; the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, and featured in group exhibitions at the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO; the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT; Sculpture Milwaukee, WI; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL; the KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY. In 2016, they were included in the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY, and in 2019, they were recipients of the YoungArts Foundation Arison Award. The Haas Brothers’ work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. The Haas Brothers live and work in Los Angeles, CA.