Andy Diaz Hope & Laurel Roth
Allegory of the Infinite Mortal, 2010
Jacquard tapestry
76 x 108 in.
edition of 8

Andy Diaz-Hope and Laurel Roth’s second collaborative tapestry edition depicts a garden surrounding a fountain of youth; the artists describe the work as “a gathering of historical figures who created models of thought that have influenced the way we think about the infinite.” The tapestry contains extraordinary levels of detail, featuring figures ranging from the mythical phoenix; Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world; and Skylab, the United States’ first space station, to philosopher Kurt Gödel; Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace; Timothy Leary; a tortoise representing Zeno’s paradox of motion; Henrietta Lacks, a cancer patient whose biopsied cells became the first immortal human cell line; and Brahmagupta, the first century mathematician credited with the invention of the number zero.

“Our triptych of tapestries explores and illustrates three fundamental themes of conflict in literature. In Allegory of the Infinite Mortal, our version of ‘Human versus Him/Herself,’ we created a contemplative garden tableau that represented various scientific and philosophical structures used throughout human history to examine the concepts of infinity, immortality, and our place therein.” – Laurel Roth and Andy Diaz Hope