Leo Villareal’s work is focused on stripping systems down to their essence to better understand the underlying structures and rules that govern how they work. He is interested in lowest common denominators such as pixels or the zeros and ones in binary code. Starting at the beginning, using the simplest forms, Villareal begins to build elements within a framework. The work explores not only the physical but adds the dimension of time combining both spatial and temporal resolution. The resulting forms move, change, interact and ultimately grow into complex organisms that are inspired by mathematician John Conway’s work with cellular automata and the Game of Life.

Central to Villareal’s work is the element of chance. His goal is to create a rich environment in which emergent behavior can occur without a preconceived outcome. The artist is an active participant, serving as editor in the process through his careful selection of compelling sequences. These selections are then further refined through combination with other sequences through simple operations such as addition, subtraction and multiplication. Villareal manipulates the sequences’ opacity, speed, and scale through custom software. Ultimately, complex compositions are formed and then displayed in random order and for an arbitrary amount of time in the final artwork.

The artist has created many site specific works including: Light Matrix for the Auckland Theater Company, in Auckland, New Zealand; Volume (Frisco), at the Dallas Cowboys’ Headquarters in Frisco, Texas; Buckyball at The NorthPark Center in Dallas, TX; Light Matrix at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Volume (Renwick), for the Renwick Gallery at Smithsonian in Washington DC, Radiant Pathways, Rice University in Houston, Texas; Cosmos, at the Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Multiverse, The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Diagonal Grid, Borusan Center for Culture and Arts, Istanbul, Turkey; Stars, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York, and Hive, for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the Bleecker Street subway station in Manhattan.