LIGHT, SHADOW AND REFLECTION
RESEARCH
VIDEO
I looked at the work of the Light Series Artists; Lynn Marie Kirby, Saul Levine, Guy Sherwin and Luis Recoder.
They produce short works in series format to explore the essence of cinematic light. I particularly liked the work of Guy Sherwin who produced a piece using a Metronome slowly ticking. Also “Eye” where he focussed directly on the pupil of a woman’s eye, recording the subconscious reflex actions manipulated by lamp and lense aperture. As the film goes bright the subject’s eyes dilate as do that of the audiences.
I bought a 3 metre piece of transparent silk and tied white buttons to each corner to weight it down then tied white cotton thread to each button. I experimented with tying two corners the bottom of a window frame and attaching the other two to hooks on the floor – pulling the silk tight and filming the light moving across the fabric.
I then tied it to a tree in the garden and filmed the light reflections and shadows when the wind blew the fabric.
I took the fabric in to college and tied it to the railings above the stairs and the buttons weighted it down, I then filmed the fabric gently moving in the breeze through the college. I also filmed the fabric falling (this was not so successful).
PHOTOGRAPHY
Main influences:
Dan Flavin – Untitled (in honour of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery) 1987. A series of fluorescent tubes to illuminate existing architecture and suggest new space from old.
Marcel Duchamp Tu m’ 19181 – shadows cast by his ready mades
I started my project by looking back at every photograph I have ever taken (I keep an archive) and printing out all the photographs that I have focussed my subject around light and shadow.
Once I decided to explore photography more – I took every opportunity to photograph shadws and light – one particular photograph I took at a church on the North Bridge, the light cast huge shadows of the railings across each step breaking it up into a clean composition – I was so pleased with this photograph that I am using it for my website, logo, letterhead, cv and comp slips.
I started reinventing space by masking the shards of light that fell on my bedroom floor – I then did the same in the corridor at college and photographed them. I really like these but don’t want to rely on light to reproduce this effect at the sculpture workshop – and producing a large photograph wouldn’t be strong enough.
I worked on a photograph I’d taken at Turkey zoo of a peacock I chose to expand it beyond the edge of the print in my sketch book – drawing the lines of light shining through a fence behind it and connecting them to the corners of the page.
I enrolled in a class at the Printmakers Workshop to learn how to do stone lithography and made two stones to print from the photograph, one for the dark and the other for the light. I printed the light with a blend of yellow and transparent white, printed the dark with a warm brown. I am very pleased with the final prints but don’t want to use them for the exhibition as they are not striking enough.
I then started a new series of photographs, starting with light reflections appearing as I opened and closed the door at the sculpture workshop – this created 3 successful photographs that I used on my business cards.
I continued photographing light reflections on my kitchen floor and cut into them building collages in my sketchbook.
SCULPTURE
Fred Sanback 1943-2003 Minimalise concept-based sculptor – sting sculptures and prints.
Yarn/wire/string define the edges of virtual shapes and ask viewers’ brain to perceive the rest of the form. “Corner” pieces whose shadows assist with this form completion process.
Sarah Sze 1969 –
American Artist, work that is painterly and sculptural. Boundaries between art and everyday life. “The piece ….. breaking of the floor plane, the soaring ceiling, the open space and the natural light. The space allowed for a piece that unravelled as one moved through it.
I sketched out some ideas and made cardboard maquettes to decide on a shape to have made in iron, I tried wood but decided I wanted to weather the sculpture and didn’t want it to rot or split– I wanted clean sharp lines that cast bold shadows.
Looking at Sol Lewitt “Five models with one cube” – ‘the form itself is of very limited significance; it becomes the grammar of the whole work.”
I sketched chalk drawings similar to Lewitt’s “Open Cube” using 3, 4 and 5 ‘legs’ to decide the best design.
I then set up the two iron sculptures I had decided on in my garden and photographed them from loads of angles, catching the light at different times of the day.
FINAL PIECE
A projection of a photograph I took of light on the kitchen floor – it is bright and the lines are clean – I propose to project this low down and relatively small.
The rusted sculptures – I want to place them outside the Sculpture Workshop.
Photographs – 6 photos of the sculptures and their shadows (final choice to be made on the day)
here’s the shape of the light shining on the bedroom floor after the light has gone 
