66 pages, 48 color illustrations
8 x 6 in.
Perfect bound foil stamped paperback
ISBN 978941556696

Published by Ampersand Editions, 2020
First Edition of 200 copies

Pattern No. 5 is part of an ongoing series of books for which artists and thinkers are invited to create, collect or converse about pattern making. Marc David Spengler, lives and works near Stuttgart in Germany, note that his working process is spontaneous. Each composition, he emphasizes, is made without a sketch or pencil drawing beforehand. Every shape and every color choice is an impulsive reaction to those previously drawn. A sense of anticipation is manifest in unknown outcomes. I am, he says, the creator and the viewer at the same time. There's a kinetic quality to the process, often captured in short overhead videos that he makes as he draws and then posts to Instagram. It sounds entirely free, but there are unwritten rules that form the aesthetics of his work. These rules orient and balance shape, line and color to create harmony in each composition. The "side drawings,“ presented to the left of select spreads in the book, are accidental patterns created while testing markers and color combinations. Pattern, then, is both carefully defined and fluid with parallel alternatives. Though it's undeniable that his recurring shapes develop a visual pattern entirely his own, it's a set of unseen mental guidelines in the making process that establishes the key pattern overall.

A deluxe edition that includes original drawings from the book is available here.