Light Conversations

This exhibition of artworks combined photography, sculpture, paint and light to create living, moving works of art. Through the motion of light, the pieces encouraged a contemporary audience, accustomed to quickly-changing images, to participate in conversations about our world. Each work offered commentary on an important social issue of today, such as consumerism, deforestation, and the beauty of life’s small moments. Collectively, the installation strove to prove that it is possible to encourage people to pause from their busy lives to experience art.

Light as Art. Art as Change. "

Times Square
Structures welded from steel box tube loomed 8-10’ tall over viewers of this piece, dwarfing them by comparison. The towers formed an abstracted Times Square in perspective, with each “shop window” showcasing an anti-logo poking fun at American consumerism. The towers flashed wildly, like their namesake, making it difficult to focus on individual logos.

A man and a woman stand in front of the center tower, looking up at the logos on the colorful geometric segments in front of them.

Light Forest
Light brought to life a stand of metal trees, casting multiple shadows to create a forest. Peaceful natural sounds filled the space as a human entered it. First the performer studied and experienced the forest. Then they destroyed it, extinguishing the lights as the trees were aurally felled. The video below contains excerpts from several improvised performances given by Michael Kaye's Theatre Ensemble class of 2014.

A steel sculpture made of three layers of metal trees cut out of metal and layered one on top of the other. The sculpture is placed in front of a white fabric with fulness and lit by several small lights on the floor. These cast shadows of multiple trees onto the fabric, creating a light forest.

Life Portal
Theatre students around the Huntington Theater paint shop were each invited to take a break from the stresses of midterms to paint a 4'x4' square of masonite in whatever fashion they desired. The painted squares were then assembled, along with some hanging colorful fabric, into a portal and lit with color-scrolling lights so that the colors and patterns of the squares shifted constantly. Visitors to the gallery passed through this portal in order to enter the space. Upon arriving before it, they were invited by the ebbing and flowing of color to stop and stay for a bit to take in a simple moment of beauty--the way that the students who painted the squares took a few minutes to have a little fun.

A woman in a light sweater and black pants stands on top of a floor element made of many squares, each painted with multiple colors and lit in a different color of light. Square pieces of fabric in different colors hang behind her. She is lit in a beam of light scraping down these pieces of fabric.

A light-haired woman with a ponytail wearing a green shirt and black sweats smiles as she dips yellow nerf gun darks into paint which is poured onto the lid of a white bucket to create a painter's palette.

A person with brown hair and wearing a black jacket pours green paint onto a white luan (wood) square. The square is covered in purple and green paint which have been dripped onto it.

An assortment of 4'x4' squares of luan painted each with an individual colorful design in a different style. They are laid out to create a long rectangular shape by placing them two by two in a line.

Two people sit on the floor made up of the multi-color squares. They appear to be enjoying themselves and taking it all in.

A smiling blonde person with long hair and glasses and wearing a paint-covered black shirt and jeans steps with a foot covered in paint onto a white square of luan.

An image of the portal installed. The squares are laid out two by two into a long rectangle. Each is lit in its own box of colorful light. The long rectangle appears to continue up the wall. Six squares of single-color fabric are hung two by two to continue the long rectangle up into the air.