Much of creative work is described as inspiration or intuition, as though ideas arrive fully formed. Paper sculptor, Peter Ayres, resists that narrative. For him, creativity is not a single moment of brilliance but a sequence of decisions shaped by structure, constraint and exploration. What interests him most is not the final outcome, but the architecture of choice that leads there.
Working across art, design and research, Peter approaches creativity as an evolving system. “When you’re making a design you have a series of valid answers, but there’s no one correct answer,” he explains. That idea sits at the core of his practice and mirrors the way both artists and scientists navigate uncertainty.
Balancing Rules and Freedom
Peter’s process often begins with a deliberate tension between opposites. “While I’m producing work for myself and following my own research, I try to balance figurative and non-figurative work, and rigid geometric versus flowing freeform work.” This balance is not aesthetic indecision but a method for keeping ideas responsive and alive.
At times, he works within strict systems. Folding paper according to a simple sine wave, for example, means committing to a set of rules and letting the outcome emerge. “That involved just following the rules, going with those rules, and what the outcome dictated itself.” In these moments, personal preference steps aside and the system takes over.
At other times, the process is more intuitive. “Another way of working is to be much more freely guided,” he says, describing sketching by hand and allowing curves to follow their own paths. These forms are then iterated, copied and transformed. The movement between hand drawing and digital tools allows ideas to evolve without becoming fixed too early.
Peter sees value in keeping multiple approaches active at once. Some days the brain wants to play. Other days it wants to execute. Maintaining different modes of working creates space for both.
The Wasp Project and Invisible Decisions
One of Peter’s most compelling examples of art–science integration comes from a project focused on wasps. The aim was not to aestheticize biology, but to understand how very small brains make complex decisions. “The wasp project really came out of trying to understand how very small brains make complex decisions,” he explains. What fascinated him was the precision behind these choices. “The choice architecture isn’t conscious, but it’s incredibly precise.” By studying patterns of movement and behaviour, the project revealed how decisions emerge from structure rather than intention. Art became the means of making that structure visible. “By externalizing it visually, people could suddenly see the logic behind what looked like chaos.” This translation from biological data into form allowed audiences to engage with scientific ideas without needing technical expertise. For Peter, this is where art–science integration matters most. It does not simplify science or decorate it. Instead, it gives shape to systems that are otherwise invisible. “That’s where art–science becomes powerful. It gives form to systems we usually can’t perceive.”
Dead Ends, Risk and Decision Points
Peter often speaks about creativity as a non-linear journey. He challenges the idea that good work follows a straight path from idea to result. When teaching students, he reminds them that uncertainty is not a failure. “Nobody knows where we’re going,” he says. He uses the metaphor of a caterpillar exploring a tree. There are many branches and many potential fruits, but no guarantee of which path will succeed. Some branches lead nowhere and require retracing steps. These dead ends are not wasted effort. They are essential to understanding the terrain. “The aim isn’t to focus too much on the end goal,” Peter explains, because doing so can eliminate entire sets of possibilities. Sometimes progress requires pushing beyond personal taste and allowing the work to become what it needs to be. What excites him most are the moments of choice. “You’re changing the question to how do I make a decision at this stage of the project,” he says. These decision points are where risk is taken or reduced and where the direction of the work is truly shaped. This way of thinking closely mirrors scientific research. Hypotheses are tested, adjusted or abandoned. Models are refined. Knowledge advances not through certainty, but through careful navigation of uncertainty.
Noticing the World Anew
Peter hopes his work encourages audiences to see familiar materials differently. Paper, he notes, surrounds us daily. Yet it continues to surprise him. “Even the most familiar objects that surround us every single day contain delight and wonder and surprise.”
Art, in his view, trains attention. It slows perception and reveals patterns we normally filter out. Encountering a piece of work can change how we see leaves, surfaces or even people in the street. This act of noticing is deeply connected to both art and science.
Scientists often describe their work as creating approximate models of the world. Peter sees this as fundamentally similar to artistic practice. Both involve observing, abstracting and refining. Both accept that models will be incomplete and that discovery comes from recognising where they fall short.
Art–Science as a Shared Method
For Peter, art and science are not opposing domains but complementary ways of engaging with complexity. They share experimentation, iteration and creativity. They also share humility. Each acknowledges that knowledge is provisional and that understanding emerges through process.
Art–science integration, then, is not about merging disciplines for novelty. It is about recognising shared methods and shared questions. How do systems behave? How do choices emerge? How do we make sense of complexity?
By framing creativity as an architecture of choice, Peter invites a more generous view of both art and science. One that values process over product and curiosity over certainty. In that space, new forms of understanding can take shape.
