Artist James Mai employs permutational and combinatorial methods to produce sets of geometric forms for inclusion in his paintings and digital prints. Recent art works include form-sets comprised of form-variants derived from the regular octagon. The artist explains the process by which he creates the form-sets, the geometric features of the form-variants that constitute each form-set, and how the form-sets are composed in art works. In addition to first-order characteristics related to permutation rules, second-order characteristics of symmetry are found in the form-sets and are included in the art works. The permutational and symmetry characteristics of the form-sets are intended as the principal content of the art works and as such are designed to be visually comprehensible, apart from verbal or mathematical explanation. To that end, both mathematical and visual-aesthetic requirements influence the development of permutational form-sets from the start. This “aesthetic-mathematical dialectic” is critical to the development of art works whose mathematical content is adapted and responsive to visual perception.