December 5, 2015 - January 2, 2016

A group show featuring the works of Fariba Abedin, Adela Andea, Soledad Arias and Lorraine Tady

Essay by Volker Eisele

The title “The Weight of Light” has been borrowed from a painting by the Italian painter Francesco Clemente and refers to the celebration of light as the giver of life in prehistoric cults. Similarly, the idea of light as the source of biological existence is part of most creation myths and many philosophical systems.

The visible light spectrum is quite dramatic and holds all the colors that humans can see; a beam of white light is made up of all the colors. Visible light is composed of photons, which are the most abundant particles in the universe.  These weight-less particles have the ability to form a stream or wave-like pattern that makes up the wavelengths of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Contrast of hue, in painting, enables the painter to establish the interplay of luminous forces. Black and white are the artist’s strongest tools to express darkness and light, but with the advancement in harnessing different light particles, neon and LED lights are new and exciting instruments.

This exhibition explores and juxtaposes the visual parameters of light as a physical presence and as a symbolic conjecture.

Soledad Arias’ work has been exhibited extensively in museums throughout the US and South America. Her wall based neon sculptures engage the viewer with mostly trivial, yet emotionally charged words like “white lies” or “like you i forgot”. The impact of the brilliant luminescence and the halo effect of the neon writing potentially transforms the immanence and perception of these phrases.

Adela Andea has dazzled many visitors of her numerous exhibitions throughout Texas with her kinetic sculptures. Made from consumer electronics, fiber optics, neon, LED or mirrors she creates luminous environments that pulsate and radiate beyond their sculptural space giving the viewer a full sensory experience.

Fariba Abedin’s paintings dissect light into its prismatic components. She then re-configures these component colors into sometimes large-scale compositions. Reminiscent of early Bauhaus concepts, especially ideas by Johannes Itten in his book “The Art of Color”, Abedin goes beyond the original Bauhaus premises and articulates novel geometric color fields of her own provenance.

“The language of line propels the work,” states Lorraine Tady describing her latest works consisting of immense drawings. Tady lets her adventurous line roam the picture plane, drawing diagrams, bundles of rays or geometric structures filled in with cobalt blue; drawings that use such precision through formal examination of structure. These mechanical-like systems then float on a sea of blinding white light.