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PENROSE TILES UNDERNEATHThis shows the pattern of the Penrose tiles at the center of Stacy’s artwork. Artist Paul Stacy made the joints between the tiles invisible when he painted it.Paul Stacy. www.pdstacy.com

Stacy started playing with the tiles to make shapes of his own. He put together nine of the skinny tiles to form a yellow cross on a blue background, and then he did the same with nine of the fat tiles. These larger, nine-tile groups were each the same shape as the individual diamond-shaped tiles that made them up, so Stacy used each nine-tile group as a Penrose tile, following the construction rules of Penrose tiles to create a never-repeating pattern.

What emerged was a swarm of groups of blue tiles against a yellow background that seemed to swirl and buzz like a swarm of bees. Stacy discovered that the rules of Penrose tile construction meant there were precisely seven shapes the groups of blue tiles could form.