A Quest for Light
I have dedicated the past four years at George Mason University learning technical and conceptual skills that allow me to engage in the international dialogue in today’s art community. My goal is to expand as an artist and create experiences that fuel my inspiration. I have used all the resources of the university to do this; including learning how to teach art to young students and children, seeing art through the eyes of an art historian in the renowned Cambridge University, and working as an assistant to art historians at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
I use traditional Christmas lights and Styrofoam balls to make large-scale, temporary installations within gallery and studio space. The purpose of these light pieces is to produce contrast between intense color and light in an otherwise dark room. The porous material of the Styrofoam has a softening effect on the light, which allows our delicate retinas to indulge in the intensity of color glowing from within, creating a mesmerizing experience. I question the role of the gallery space/ viewer in a piece, as well as the overall definition of a painting. My light pieces are paintings that use space and darkness as a canvas and colored light as pigment, thus becoming three-dimensional paintings that the viewer can enter and become part of. I have also expanded my medium by implementing the use of panels instead of balls, contextualizing my pieces within the genre of traditional painting. Using established theories on color, I choose each color carefully in order to create harmony, beauty, and contrast. In the following years, I wish to continue pushing the limits of the readymade materials, expand the size of my pieces, and to explore new ways of achieving this effect through different materials, such as LED lights and plexi-glass,.
Although my work is sculptural in appearance, it is painterly in entirety because it derives meaning from space, light and composition than from the materials themselves. Dan Flavin, Felix Gonzales Torres, James Turrell, and many other artists have influenced my work. It is the dialogue of light art that I wish to explore in theoretical and critical studies.
