In Alain’s reply to my request for an interview he said to me to correct or clarify any shortcomings to his response in English, of which I duly do here. However, any changes are most minor indeed; his English is in general very good, and only on a few occasions was it necessary to change or clarify the text here, and indeed even where it was required, it was only necessary to correct a word or phrase, never so much as even a single sentence. Any changes are really so minor that documenting these is pedantic, and so I thus show the ‘adjusted’ interview without further comment.

David Bailey (DB): How did you begin in tessellation; was it by seeing Escher’s work (as is usually the case)?
Alain Nicolas (AN): Ever since being very young, I remember to have imaginative words crossing without any spaces. But that was much too complicated for me then! But later, in 1973, I read a book titled ‘Illusions’ where there were four drawings by Escher. They were not tessellations, but it is there that I started to take an interest in Escher and to discover his work.

DB: What do you consider your best work, and what are its particular merits? In addition, what other examples do you consider that stand out for the rest?
AN: I was particularly happy when I drew ‘Rodeo’ because the pattern is composed of two tiles and the silhouette is very articulate in its action. And I was ‘with the angels’ when I finished ‘Travis Pickin’, because it was the dream of my childhood which was carried out to cross words without space and this task is very difficult; especially so with words that are easily readable. Moreover, Merle Travis is my favourite guitarist and the letters have a small western look.

DB: How do you go about designing a tessellation; do you have just one process, or many?
AN: I work with a paper and a pencil. Then I test several types of polygon which I deform. But sometimes I search for a ‘good’ polygon appropriate to a well defined subject. This was the case, for example, with ‘Rodeo’. For the tessellations with words, I always start with a word which has an emotional significance for me.

DB: What do you find so ‘fascinating’ about tessellation?
AN: It is the representation of the infinite. And while drawing, the feeling to reveal what God created.

DB: What do you consider the most important aspect of a high-quality tessellation?
AN: Firstly, the recognition of the motif in silhouette, which should be ‘good’. Then, it’s the aesthetic side.

DB: Which contemporary tessellation artists do think highly of?
AN: For me, Makoto Nakamura is the best, from the quantity and the quality of his tessellations.

DB: Do you still think the subject has areas to explore, or did Escher mine it to exhaustion?
AN: I think that there is still much to discover, although the simplest have already been discovered.

Created: 6 April 2012