Gary Lester is fascinated by the consilience of maths and art. His practice-led research uses performative sculpture to aid in the understanding of mathematical concepts.

The use of abstract mathematical notation has enabled mathematics to progress into previously unthought of conceptual areas. Without the application of mathematical notation, the evolution of pure mathematics would have been stunted. Throughout history branches in pure mathematics have at first seemed unable to be applied to the real world. Only for technology or science to catch up and find a use for them. Gary's praxis does not diminish or belittle the importance of mathematical notation, but investigates the efficacy of using concrete forms in the advancement of understanding mathematical concepts.

It is not often that art is an origin to further mathematical understanding, and Gary's 2-adic Valley illustrates the movement of numbers from the complex plane and numbers in higher dimension spaces finding their place on a one dimensional p-adic numberline. Through the production of 2-adic valley Gary questions whether a second dimension is possible in the non-Euclidean p-adic metric.

Recently, he has explored the stochastic nature of double pendulums and Isaac Newton’s Proposition LXVI, and used complex numbers as an inspiration for producing a sculpture titled eye^i. The sculpture Janus is created based on the study of fractal dimensions calculation methods; Hausdorff measure and Minkowski-Bouligand measure. It has been inspiration for carrying out meta-analysis of using concrete forms to promote mathematical learning in tertiary education; which will be the starting point for further PhD studies.