LightMatter

Full description

Research Background
Light Matter is a major site determined exhibition that contributes to international strategies of site- responsive spatial installation practice informed by the Light and Space Movement (Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Maria Nordman) and in conversation with contemporaries such as Olafur Eliasson and Carsten Holler. It is part of the artists long running collaboration with Natasha Johns-Messenger in which the installation functions as a environment intended to prompt larger revelations about the experience of perception itself.

Research Contribution
The installation uses architecturally scaled mirrors, scrim, and fabricated walls to undermine a sense of certainty about the perception of space and objects within it. Classical perspective is confounded through the strategic placement of monumental, scaled mirror designed to extend the perception of illusory space whilst a second body of work explores these themes on an intimate scale through the precise positioning of mirror and lighting to produce interdependent shadows and reflections. The exhibition draws on an understanding of interiority in the discipline of interior design that emphasises the relational threshold between oppositions using spatial arrangements of materials and architectural fabrication.

Research Significance
The significance of this research may be attested to by invitation from Station Gallery a nationally esteemed venue, support of a highly competitive grant from the Australia Council for the Arts ($32K), over 100 attendees at an online discussion and participation by renowned curator Lynda Michael (previously Senior Curator Heide Museum of Art and curator of the Australian Pavilion Venice Biennale).