One Ballarat resident, Gordon Monro, has taken his love of the abstract concepts of mathematics and created computer programs generating stunning works of art.

Monro, who has a PhD in pure mathematics from Bristol in England and a PhD in fine arts from Deakin University, will spend months on end perfecting the computer programs required to give birth to his mathematical “creatures”.

Unlike fractal art, Monro’s works are a complex interpretation of DNA and evolution.

“I set up a miniature evolutionary process. So these have numbers that act as DNA, and I let them ‘breed’ and mutate within the computer,” he said.

“I pick out a few that I like at the end of the process.”

To create more interesting “creatures”, Monro will put particular formulas inside his programs.

“I set up survival rules. For example, I can make the more symmetrical ones stand a better chance of surviving to the next generation. You’ve got survival of the fittest, but survival is due to some arbitrary rule that I’ve set up, such as symmetry.”

The creatures evolve according to breeding, mutation and survival of the fittest, with the resulting artworks often the result of 200 generations of evolution. After months of breeding and evolving the creatures, suddenly Monro’s computer will generate scores of images.

Monro is not the first artist to take on evolutionary computer art, which has a 25-year history, but said his results were his unique “take”.

He said it didn’t matter whether viewers were aware of the mathematical process behind the works.

“They should work as works of art (alone),” he said.

“The process is interesting to me and the process is interesting to people interested in this sort of thing, but it’s only one aspect of it.

“I do look at them as beautiful things as well, notwithstanding the mathematics. I want both – something that is aesthetically attractive but also something that has a process behind it.”

An exhibition of Monro’s work, Shaping Evolution, is being held at Gallery on Sturt until October 31.