light

Hans Kotter     2004 | illumination | back 8 light boxes from film, 155x55x15cm     2008 | www.kinetica-museum.org | balance | london | back courtesy Kinetica Museum, luminous film and inverter James Turrell    _WEDGEWORK  "As you move across towards the corner, the light changes from translucent to  transparent. The light actually occupied space as opposed to being seen to shine on the surface od the wall. The colour should arrive with the light and not be painted on the wall." ( Turrell, 1993)

Light  Science tell us that light  is an essential element for life on the earth. There are other initial elements for life too such as water and air.  In the beginning, God created 'light' very first. People regard that it is the beginning of everything.  However, I just want to pointed out that there was water before God created light. I did not know that until this year. One of my friend told me this when I said, Light is what God created first.  Form the Bible, Genesis chapter one, verse two, '... and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water.'  verse three, ' And God said, "Let there be light, ..."   Back to the point, Light is Divine and sublime subject. Light, we cannot touch it. Also Light does not have tangible or fixed shape. Light is what we can just see or feel it.  Light leads us to see somethings. Light opens our eyes to recognise objects. However, when light is too strong, we cannot see anything. Our eyes will be blind.  Light has its own colours. It cannot me made with other materials. Painting cannot have same colour with sky which glows with the setting sun. Only light can mimic the colour. Hans Kotter is one of artist who use light as medium for art. Many people may think James Turrell's works when they see Kotter's works. However, I think that Hans Kotter's work is more focused on making art pieces using light. James turrell makes space with light that people can be inside the light. Hans Kotter focuses on the metaphoric and sensual perception of material and of aesthetics of form. For me, he is more like a sculpture, and James Turrell is a installation artist.      James Turrell is an American artist primarily concerned with light and space.    His medium in 'Light'.  Art historian Rudolpf Arnheim has noted: Light is one of the revealing elements of life ... It is the most spectacular experience of the senses, an apparition properly celebrated, worshipped and implored in early religious ceremonies. But as its powers over the practice of daily living become sufficiently familiar, it is threatened with falling into oblivion. It remains for the artists and the occasional poetical moods of the common man to preserve the access to the wisdon that can be gained from the contemplation of light. - art and visual perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye  James Turrell said, 'I want to create an atmosphere ... that can be consciously plumbed with seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.'    I started installation work because I want to make space, atmosphere that people come into my work and feel it. Painting was not enough for me to transfer my idea and emotion to people. Space are more powerful than two-dimensional painting.  http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=32 RW:  I think what lies behind my questions about your early years is that I wonder what first attracted your attention and interest to light. JT:  Well I was fascinated with light right from the very beginning. I did several things in my room when I was very young. We had these blackout curtains in Pasadena, as a response to the threat of attack in WWII. And I pulled them down and put the constellations along the ecliptic so that during the day I could see the stars. I was interested in light phenomena. I think it's not too different from a deer looking into the headlights-that quality of captivation. My grandmother used to tell me that as you sat in Quaker silence you were to go inside to greet the light. That expression stuck with me. One thing about Quakers, and I think many Friends might laugh about this, is that often people wonder what you're supposed to do, when you go in there. And it's kind of hard to say. Telling a child to go inside "to greet the light" is about as much as was ever told to me. But there is an idea, first of all, of vision fully formed with the eyes closed. Of course the vision we have in a lucid dream often has greater lucidity and clarity than vision with the eyes open. The fact that we have this vision with the eyes closed is very interesting. And the idea that it's possible to actually work in a way, on the outside, to remind one of how we see on the inside, is something that became more interesting to me as an artist.