“Life is anything but tedious owing to nature’s inexhaustible richness which... produces ever new, beautiful and fascinating forms that provide new material to speculate and ponder over, to draw and describe... in addition to the scientific element, it involves artistic matters to a large degree” Ernst Haeckel

What is Isomorphology?

Isomorphology is a comparative, drawing based method of enquiry into the shared forms of animal, mineral and vegetable morphologies. As a holistic and visual approach to classification, Isomorphology runs parallel to scientific practice while belonging to the domain of artistic creation. It is complementary to science: addressing relationships that are left out of the scientific classification of animal, vegetable and mineral morphologies.

Drawing is a method, which can reveal the shared forms of conventionally unrelated species and the drawing process is intrinsic to the epistemological value of Isomorphology. Isomorphology has created a new context and purpose for my work with natural history specimens.

Bilateral Symmetry Spiral form
Three fold symmetry Phallus form

Four fold symmetry

Hexagonal form
Five fold symmetry Branching form
Six fold symmetry Hyperbolic form
Radial form Stoma form
    Knot form

Fig 1: The primary forms and
symmetries of Isomorphology.
These are conceptual forms;
abstracted from nature.