Belarusian artist honors US physicist with sculpture
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Belarusian sculptor Pavel Wilimaytis created a 30cm tall portrait of Jim Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland and Brown University.
Wilimaytis, who lives in Saint-Jorioz, France, selects subjects for his sculptures based on the impressions he gets from their faces. His mother, Natallia, explained that Wilimaytis, who has a hearing impairment, developed an ability to perceive people’s emotions and character before he learned to understand language.
Wilimaytis discovered photos of Gates and felt drawn to his apparent warmth and openness. He saw in Gates “the quiet generosity of a scientist and teacher known for his exceptional ability to open the world of knowledge to others”. Gates is known for his research into supersymmetry, superstring theory, and the relationship between quantum physics and information theory, as well as his work communicating science to the public through programs like PBS’s The Elegant Universe.
The sculpture of Gates is part of Wilimaytis’ ongoing series, “The lesser-known faces of famous people”, which also features portraits of Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, and Erwin Schrödinger. Jim Gates responded to the sculpture with delight in an email to Wilimaytis’ mother.
