The Butterfly Effect is a theory developed by the mathematician and chaos theorist Edward Lorenz. While studying weather patterns Lorenz developed the Lorenz attractor, which defined his theory; the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic non-linear system can result in large differences in a later state. 

 Lorenz's theory is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (exact time of formation, exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly occurring several weeks earlier. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.

 Norman Mooney’s practice is similarly one of experimentation and exploration, through materials and process his work explores the elemental and cyclical synergies in nature. Materiality, pattern, scale and experience are key concerns within his practice. His process for all these works begins with very direct methods of exploration, pencil sketching, clay modelling, and maquette building. The work is then abstracted into 3D computer programs, a process removing the work from touch to the abstract. The materials are roughly carved by CNC machines and then the process is brought full circle as the pieces are finished by hand.

 The “Cumulus Stones” are intentionally ambiguous. Cloud formations by their nature are indefinable. With these final pieces all the heavy process is lost, there is a sense that the marble pieces could have been found in a riverbed, like Chinese mediation stones. There is little evidence of the process It took to create these works; the quarrying of stone, the carving of marble, however there is a similar resonance that is found in natural objects, a resonance of a passage of time and all that it took to arrive where it is. 

Expansion is another key theme that runs through Mooney’s work, reflective in both the “Cumulus Stones” and “The Butterfly Effect” both works are at once reminiscent of the effects of weather patterns and the indefinable complexity of chaos at play within nature, and simultaneously, the quietude and space in the moment before a butterfly flaps it’s wings.