A Different Side
In her 1974 book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes,
“I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.”
There are many ideas that come out of this beautiful phrase, from the physical to the metaphysical. Today, I’ll focus on a literal reading of it as it pertains to decoration.
In daily life, we predominantly use our eyes in one way: to focus on a target, be it a person or object. Our consciousness is entirely consumed by the thing that is in our visual frame until we replace it with the next. Furthermore, in an internet/Photoshop age, we’re inundated by stagnant images of things floating on a white background. Objects are promoted to the solo star of the show, while simultaneously being isolated and stripped of the power they realize in context of their surroundings.
It begs the following question:
Is the purpose of light to make objects visible to us?
Or is it the other way around?
Are objects there to provide a surface on which light can land, so that we may observe its beauty?
My feeling is it’s both in a continuously changing dynamic. But that’s an endless discussion for another day. Since we have plenty of experience looking at objects, it’s a worthwhile exercise to train ourselves to switch it up. So let’s start practicing seeing light.
Davide Balliano (b.1983) is an artist in Brooklyn. His work focuses on the subtle line between painting and sculpture.
This piece is a perfect example of the relationship between object and light. To start, it’s nothing more than a block with a portion scooped out. However, it’s this absence of material that allows light into the space, creating a beautiful gradient of shadows. Essentially, the central focus isn’t a thing but light and how it occupies the absence of that thing.
Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) was an Argentine sculptor and painter who is known as the founder of Spatialism.
This one of his final works. After a lifetime of experimenting with different techniques for breaking the canvas plane - punctuations, rips, and slashes, he perfected his expression with a single cut. He starts with a finite two-dimensional surface, and in one motion begets an infinity - the void where light is not and cannot be.
Fujikasa Satoko (1980) is a Japanese sculptor who works primarily with coarse clay from the Shigaraki region of Japan.
Now that we’ve studied the beauty of where light is, and the infinitude of where it is not, I leave this complex flow of light and shadow for you to ponder.