Chris Bennett

Welcome to my Development page! I'm using this page as a holder of all my experimental work, writings and learnings - so it will be more of a resource area for other students than anything.

Final Major Project

The final major project (FMP) is run at the end of my 2nd year of college and is a chance to do something a little more far0reaching and emphatic than the standard "do this, do that" project brief. The most liberating part of the project is the brief, which is self-written and (almost) completely open. I've decided to take my colour and sound studies further and to investigate things like liquids, forms/containment and vibrations - so, in essence, how do all these react to each other. As part of the FMP we are asked to study and research in a greater detail than we have done previously and to learn things in a more advanced light (for lack of a better example). I've decided, then, to use my website to upload work and thoughts on the project as though it were a blog, adding things as I do them and being able to link in real-time to resources of interest - a digital sketchbook, if you like :)

The last project was very much focused on light and shape, so this project is a slight extension of some themes I touched on, such as:

Science of perception

Reflection and refraction

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

Astronomy, science, light capture techniques

Wider context of art (in relation to what I'm studying)

Spacial generation using light

Architecture and light

Timebased Art

Subtractive light

Spectrum

Musical scales

Law of Simultaneous Contrast

All these things are relevant to the study of light, sound and space and each add their own unique insights into how things can work visually. One of the key artists I'm looking at right now is James Turrell. He is an innovator in light-based art and is a scientist, engineer and pilot at heart, using his skills in each to develop his own artistry. Here are a couple of examples of his work:

Turrell is also working on a giant, natural observatory carved from the rock or a dormant volcano, named Roden Crater. This development, once completed, will be one of the worlds greatest artworks (ever...honestly) tuning into the primeval wonder man has in his eyes when looking up at the stars. This project combines sculpture, art and astronomy with engineering and maths to capture beautiful moments in our night sky, such as Stonehenge once captured astronomical wonders for the people of ancient Britain.

The following is a great transcrip, taken from the Architectural Lighting magazine website. I've found it an incredibly good read with some wonderful facts in to help me with my development ideas.

Source: ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING Magazine Publication date: March 1, 2001

By A|L Staff

Over the years, Architectural Lighting Magazine has received numerous suggestions to interview light artist James Turrell, as his work and vision have inspired many. Well, the time has come. What follows is an in-depth dialogue between Turrell and lighting designer Renee Cooley–one of his many admirers–in which the legendary artist speaks about his work, his views and of course, his monumental project, the Roden Crater.

Q: Your undergraduate degree was in perceptual psychology and as a postgraduate, you studied art. What were your initial influences for exploring perception and using light and space as media?

A: My interest was always working with light. However, in art school, emphasis was placed on the color wheel and other useless 'information,' so I couldn't really learn about the kind of work I wanted to do or even find out how to acquire the tools of my trade. But this lack of information furthered my interest in dealing with the psychology of color and perception.

Q: What in particular drove you to want to explore perception?

A: There are three things related to how we greet light: The first is our relationship with light. We relate to light on a physical level. We literally drink light as Vitamin D through the skin, so it's actually a food. The second is the psychological influence of color, which has been studied more thoroughly in recent years. A third factor is our spiritual relationship to light, in that most religious or spiritual experiences are described in the vocabulary of light.

In reference to teaching the color wheel and thinking about light, we have some outmoded ways of talking about color. This is a surface culture and people think of light and color in terms of paints and strange descriptions such as 'green' or 'tangerine orange.' We don't have a very good language for light. You need to speak about light in terms of its frequency. There is truth in light in the sense that it's all natural light. There's nothing but natural light. You have to burn something to get light and the light that you get is characteristic of what you burn and the temperature at which it burns. So we can speak about light and color in terms of this frequency that comes to us-either from a surface or from the light itself-rather than just in terms of the surface quality.

But in talking about color, we must address the issue of context as well. You can have the same yellow spot-with the same frequency reaching your eye-in a blue field or a red one and the spot will appear as different colors. So I'm not only interested in working with light or its frequency, but I also explore how we greet light with our perception. In developing my craft and manipulating this intangible thing that can't be molded with the hands, I've found that light is an amazingly emotional and powerful medium.

Q: You mentioned that we have outmoded ways of talking about color and light. Is this indicative of a larger issue?

A: This is a very primitive culture with light. We spend a lot of time designing architectural fixtures that hold the light, but we haven't done a lot of work with light itself. In fact, there are many places where colors of light are less available than they used to be because of environmental questions such as the use of phosphors. You don't have to be a chemist to have thousands of colors of paint available even in a small town like Flagstaff, but I can't go buy a light that can dial through the entire spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet. We're also primitive in our use of light itself. In industrial lighting, for example, because of our concern for lighting efficiency, we've installed lights that deliver high lumen output, but aren't very habitable for people. In some ways, we've gone in difficult and wrong directions, but I think it will change rather rapidly.

Q: How do you think it will change and from what direction?

A: As with paint colors that have changed since the 1920s and automobiles and computers that have come into the general public and public knowledge, this will also happen with light. Some people are quite aware that the sodium light we're using is horrible and will want products that incorporate good design as well as efficiency. This is something that creates its own demand and demand creates change. And people who are involved in the lighting industry have to step up to a different level.

Q: The IES is moving away from having standards that are strictly footcandle-oriented.

A: Those standards are horrible. We're not made for this light. The eye is almost completely closed. We're made for very low levels of light. So the light that we use is nearly blinding. The standards are horribly inadequate and almost as bad as the 1950s' standards for nuclear radiation. And light is also radiation-it burns us in terms of causing melanoma and cancers-but more importantly, we ruin the retina with the amount of light that we use. This industry really has to get its act together on this.

But of the criticisms I have, absolutely the first concerns the use of fluorescent light. Not only do we over light work areas and create light pollution with fluorescent light, but we use transformers that emit 60-cycle-per-second sound. When you first come into an area equipped with these transformers, you'll probably hear this sound, but then after a while, you don't hear it anymore. That's because your brain is generating a 90-degrees-out-of-phase brainwave to block out the noise. So you're actually tired just from being in the space. Electronic ballasts are better, but you can also use glass-pack transformers instead of paper-pack to reduce noise. These are the sort of aspects that we're subjecting people to in buildings and work environments.

We need to deal with issues surrounding our use of light. Light has always been used to illuminate other things, but now we're actually looking at light for the first time. Some interesting experiments are being done with defraction grading and interference patterns that pertain to the behavior of light. They've discovered that light exhibits one behavior when we're looking at it and another when we're not. This almost imbues light with consciousness. That it might be aware that we're looking at it is fascinating, but how we apply it to lighting a space is another matter.

Another recent experiment with different mediums has actually demonstrated the ability to stop light. It has no speed. You can really capture it. That's kind of amazing. With these experiments, we're coming to a place where we're going to have a remarkable intimacy and knowledge about light. And light will affect how we use it.

Q: I'm also interested in what your process is as an artist.

A: It depends on the project. While I've done several projects in theater and architecture, I generally work as an artist in the context of art, and with the pieces I create for museums and collectors, I try to make specific statements in art with light.

When I do work with architecture-buildings and interior spaces-each one has an individual context or direction that requires a different process, but I approach them from an art viewpoint. My primary interest is in what happens to our perception and in creating certain kinds of experiences and the quality of the statements made by these experiences, so you know you're in something special or in some space that's been done differently.

Q: When you're working on a project in a piece of architecture such as the passageway in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, how does the synergy work best in a collaboration with an architect?

A: For me, the tunnel at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is an art piece. I didn't really work with architects there because basically, they just gave me a tunnel, which is often the type of space that architects give up on. Tunnels are difficult spaces architecturally in terms of how one feels when inside them and only now are we beginning to realize that we need to do something with these closed-off spaces.

Artists and architects working together is a very delicate and difficult subject and has a lot to do with the specific architect and the project that they're working on. The collaboration with an architect only works if the artist is involved from the beginning. If you're just taking light into a space that's already built-that's not interesting to me. Since architects don't have a solid knowledge of light, the project is more interesting to me if I'm involved from the beginning. And with any collaboration, you also have to deal with the egos of the architect and the artist or the lighting designer. But generally, collaborative effort doesn't work too well and you can see that by how our buildings are today.

I don't think that architects are very familiar with light. It's not a material that they work with. They usually make their form and then install the lights, which is a terrible way to think about light. Light should be and will be a material we build with. Although this idea is catching on as evidenced by the nighttime use of light in buildings, often the lighting has little to do with a building's functions during the day. Some of the projects I've been involved with have to do with giving buildings another life at night.

Q: When viewers are inside a project of that type, their perceptual framework is different. How do you deal with the difference in your work?

A: For a medium as powerful as light, it's amazingly fragile to put together as a strong experience. Because any light that we make is like a flashlight in the noonday desert sun, I try to isolate light, create spaces that in some way apprehend or contain it for our perception. In that way, I do use or need form, but I'm making an architectural space to light. The idea is similar to when the sun lights the atmosphere and you can't see through it to the stars or when you have stage lighting on you from the footlights and the lights above and you can't see the audience, but the audience sees you. You're in the same architectural space, but in a very different visual space.

It's actually possible to stop visual penetration with where light is or isn't in relation to the person and to apply that phenomenon in the ordering of a space. This can be further altered by how you approach it. That is, if you step in front of the footlights, you see the audience and if you're behind them, they see you, but you don't see them. By doing this with color and light in any of its aspects, you can begin to create this other realm that we enter. It's not that different from sound or an amazing piece of music that can actually make a space bigger than it actually is.

This relates to how we construct reality and the world we inhabit. Psychological or perceptual cues can take us beyond the space that we're actually in, extend it so that we're in a space bigger than its physical dimensions. And this is the space that you actually inhabit.

This has always been the possibility of art or any discipline that takes us beyond the physical reality that people think we inhabit but don't. That's what so exciting about working with lighting-expanding a space to define it, making it new and different. A lighted building can be a princess at night and commoner during the day. Light has this power and we're gaining that ability to work with it.

I know that we will build with light. We can use the limits of visual penetration to create privacy. For example, when you have your light on in your apartment and you look outside, it's black outside. But when you turn your light down inside, you can see out. So with this ordering of the penetration of vision, light can become a fundamental material to build with architecturally, and in that regard, you can make changes more cheaply with light than you can with physical architecture. At night, you can change your whole area and unite it with light, but to do that architecturally would mean a lot of materials and expenses, whereas it's fairly quickly and easily achieved with light.

Q: Going in another direction, I certainly want to talk about Roden Crater. Could you give us a background to the project?

A: Because I'm interested in all sources of light, to not work with sunlight, which is so available, would have been a big omission. But the Roden Crater also involves reflected light from the moon and planets. Our perception is quite acute in terms of light, so we can actually see our own shadow with the light of Venus alone. I like to work with these lower levels of light because it's when you reduce light that the eye opens and you no longer squint. The pupil opens and when that happens, feeling goes out of the eyes like touch, so we actually feel with the eyes.

The light at the crater is very interesting. After dark, you can see well enough to walk and negotiate spaces even on a moonless, starry night. I wanted to work with starlight as well because it comes from 180 degrees and has no shadow. If you eliminate the light from the ecliptic-that is, the light off the moon and planets and the sun-and light from the galactic plane-the Milky Way-you'd be looking into starlight that is more than 300 billion years old, older than this planetary system. It may be shifted slightly, but by isolating the light, you can confront it physically. The result is a different way of looking at and feeling light. You physically have a sense of it and a knowing of its origin.

Astronomy is this science of knowing a star without touching it. We really take what it gives, this light through remote sensing. And we really can know about it, because we can know what it is made of and what temperature it burns at just by virtue of its light. So there is this knowing in light. And we're beginning to have senses that understand that, which is exciting to me.

Q: At the crater, you have several chambers, each of which is directed to an observation of a particular celestial event...

A: It's different areas to gather light. I essentially create these spaces that apprehend light for a perception. They seemingly hold light and you feel its physicality. The reason there are a number of chambers is that anytime you direct light toward one specific thing, you necessarily occlude others. By isolating it, you make it stronger and notice it alone. The chambers are oriented to certain celestial events so that when they happen, you feel the light from that occurrence. The crater is like a space that plays the music of the spheres in light.

In a way, I'm creating a pre-made ruin. I'm interested in the timelessness of this project, but I don't know how long things will last. By using strong materials and cladding them with stone so they'll last longer, I have a chance. Most of this, though, depends on how the social organization goes. Right now, we're experiencing great advances in technology, yet at the same time, socially, we're going the opposite way. This culture is not necessarily going to last. When I was young, I thought that we'd be in a different place by now. I thought we'd be doing things like Egypt, Greece and Rome, where we're actually building a culture and producing the architecture and art that define this culture. We've never been richer than we are at present, but our funding for the arts has been continually reduced.

Q: The project's been compared to other spaces that have been used throughout history to observe celestial events. Did any of those places influence how you looked at the crater?

A: Newgrange, a somewhat primitive Celtic space, is directed toward the furthest southern sunrise or winter solstice sunrise. Then at Abu Sambal, the architecture accepts light at certain times and produces an event in light when that occurs. The idea behind the Roden Crater is that you have this opening and when the event occurs, light is brought in and creates an event in light in the space. But there are similar spaces that have done that for over 6,000 years-this is not a new way to think about our relationship to the space outside us.

Q: In terms of the visitors' experience as they move from the exterior of the crater to its interior, where does the piece actually begin and where does it end?

A: Well, it begins with the journey and making the decision to go. A lot of the price of admission is about just the willingness to go to the crater. However, in creating the chambers, I was also interested in the idea of the relationship of inside to outside, which also relates to the way that the soul inhabits the body and the body inhabits the building. Even though we still might orient a kitchen to the morning sun, generally, these buildings that we inhabit often have little do with the world outside. I want to thoroughly make the universe and certain celestial events enter the space, so that they're in there with you. For example, you'll have a 10-ft. image of the moon coming into a space 20 ft. underground. Through light, the chambers actually bring the universe that we think to be out there into the space and in doing so, extend that thought about how we inhabit these spaces. People talk about being in a place and having only 10 miles of visibility, but sometimes you look up at night and you can see 6,000 billion light years. Perception is actually different from how far vision extends and the territory we inhabit. The psychological territory we inhabit has a lot to do with our seeing into the universe and bringing it to life-into our life.

Q: How about time and the passage of time and the perception of that?

A: For me, that's a very interesting aspect. A lot of these spaces that I create in museums take time. It takes time just to adjust to the dark to be able to see them. At the Roden Crater, for example, some of the spaces are organized so that you have to go through a number of them to allow the eye to naturally dark-adapt. Some of my projects also change over time, as in the Sky Space at P.S. 1, where the piece actually evolves and develops as you watch it. But time is a construct and it's possible to create a different time and live in it. In relation to the crater project, by virtue of its being in the exposed geology of the Painted Desert, you're in a sense of time that differs from the constructions of mankind-you feel this geologic time.

Because perception is the objective, you have no object, image or place of focus. So what are you left with? Light, which becomes this magical realm. What happens is not that different from the experience of looking into a fire or a deer looking in the headlights of a car. We enter a state where we're not exactly thinking with words and then, we feel the primal power of light. Light is a powerful medium, but putting together the aspects of our feelings about it is fragile and delicate. Those are the ironies of working with light. And I'm sure that for all lighting designers and people who traffic in light, it is an amazing thing to work with. It's something that we don't easily touch and manipulate, but boy, is it powerful.

When looking at some of the Philosophy and Cosmology behind Turrell's work its hard not to want to compare it to the [Unified] Theory of Everything that physicists have been trying to achieve for the latter part of the 21st century. In particular are Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity and String Theory. Here are a few videos from TED I've found are incredibly helpful when considering such things in artistic ways.

Also check out this amazing TED video from Murray Gell-Man (of Quark Nobel Prize fame) on the beauty and truth on Physics.

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Untitled Essay (But it's something to do with metaphysicality, James Turrell and Mark Rothko)

The relationship between philosophy, spirituality and art has been interwoven since man first grasped a rock and etched his trials of hunting and of eating on the cave wall. Man has always sought more than a simple visual depiction; experiences are exchanged through time, thoughts, feelings and ideologies. Throughout history, the great philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes et al, have all tried to establish the pattern of thought, rationalisation and, inherently, the foundation of truths – which have subsequently been explored by artists and designers the world over. The most crucial part of their philosophies concerns the expression, which is purely theoretical and can only be approached through thought. Artists can express such things visually; breathing life into what otherwise appears to be a lifeless set of ramblings from men centuries dead. One such artist is James Turrell.

Born in Los Angeles in 1943, one would expect his prime years to be heavily influenced by the abstract expressionist resurgence in the 1950’s, but it is his conflicted religious beliefs and his education in psychology, maths and astronomy which give shape and meaning to his art. He is most famous for his light-based installation artworks, which use clever optical and light illusions to trick both the eye and mind. Turrell, interestingly, is a Quaker; a separate sect of Christianity originating from England, placing emphasis on the personal and spiritual experience of God, rather than following a taught doctrine and practicing prayer. These factors are all extremely important in how his work can be expressed and perceived; unique opinions are, of course, infinite in nature, depending on the viewer, but I express my own not as fact, but as reflection. His work can be summed up by the following:

“I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer. Sometimes I'm kind of cranky coming to see something. I saw the Mona Lisa when it was in L.A, saw it for 13 seconds and had to move on. But, you know, there's this slow-food movement right now. Maybe we could also have a slow-art movement, and take an hour.” – James Turrell

What is an idealised viewer? He could be referring to God, or some supreme being, but he could also be referring to anyone who views and experiences his work. “Experience” is the key word when discussing his art; seeking to move the mind, not pleasure the eye (which is important, but not crucial) and connect with the viewer on a level more than just aesthetic, but spiritual. I do not agree with the standard definition of spirituality, one of a semi-religious nature concerned with afterlives and such, rather I categorise it as a distinct state of metaphysicality – where thoughts are not just thought but experienced. Perhaps it would help to show some of his installations, the following entitled Atlan.

Fig.1: Atlan light installation, located in Ibaraki, Japan.

This is one of his defining works. It initially appears to be some form of blue object hung on a gallery wall, its eerie glow hinting at some involvement of light; how, exactly, unknown until further investigation. Moving closer to it your mind and eyes begin to disagree with each other. It looks like a flat object, but you know there is more to it - it just doesn’t feel right. You are now stood right in front of it. You can touch it, but the blue now seems like it is alive, it’s both near and far at the same time. You become lost in your own senses and instead of looking at it and analysing you now are just there; you and the gently glowing colour – all thoughts are gone and complete at the same time.

This is the experience that Turrell seeks to immerse the viewer within, and is a summary of the metaphysical state of spiritual partiality – you are freed from your expectation, predispositions and can openly confront the unknown. Consider the following quote, from Turrell, on his light installations, “I make spaces that apprehend light for our perception, and in some way gather it, or seem to hold it. So in that way it’s a little bit like Plato’s Cave. We sit in the cave with our backs to reality, looking at the reflection on the cave wall.” This is an excellent analogy to our distorted perceptions. We all know things through individual experiences and physiological perceptions, which can often be contrary to reality. Turrell uses his work to help break these false truths, coming out of the cave into the sun and seeing (experiencing) for the first time. This is almost revelatory and has religious connotations, but, of course, without a considered doctrine – the only certainty through his work is uncertainty. This principle is relevant in a great many artists’ work, from Michelangelo to Dali, Kahlo to Constable. Whether literal abstractionism in Dali, for example, to imposed thoughts and dreams, such as a Constable painting which you want to jump into and can imagine this whole new and fresh life for yourself. All artists in the entire history of mankind have some form of this metaphysicality to their work, whether deliberate or not – it can even be imposed artificially but depends entirely on who is imposing it. For example, if an individual lacks both an IQ higher than 80 and enough imagination, then their experience of a work can be extremely underwhelming, even inhibiting to their general awareness of the essence of life. Conversely, someone who has an active imagination and enough wisdom to realise they know nothing can stand in awe at a blue square or a flashing light.

Turrell’s work can also be valued aesthetically, considering the light and space involved and how the relationship between the two can cause these experiences in the idealised viewer. At a very young age Turrell’s grandmother (a Quaker herself) once told him to “go inside and greet the light”. This saying has been the cornerstone of his artistic expression and is what drives him to create his skyspaces – combination works of architecture and art which enhance and harness the natural beauty of the skies and other astronomical phenomena.

The skyspace, opposite, is a sublime example of a hybrid of architecture and art which emphasises the natural beauty of the sky. One of the more important aspects of these works is the change they continually experience, colours shifting throughout the day and night to create visuals which are never the same at any one moment. Change has been critical to the development of both science and humanity and is what drives our race to greater futures; perhaps reflecting on this gently reminds us how beautiful change can be. Not only does this work have powerful connotations in regards to society but it also holds incredibly high aesthetic value. It is not often that one can appreciate the sky as a purely visual entity, but Turrell’s skyspaces give us that chance.

Referring back to Turrell’s quote about a “slow-art” movement, one can see a real need for people to relax and appreciate what they have. Too many things today are rushed; the age of computing has made the transfer of information nigh on instantaneous, dialogue between two strangers on opposite sides of the globe is now possible at the push of a button. The entire Encyclopaedia Britannica can be sent from one side of the world to the other in less time than it takes to blink. Turrell’s work offers us a way to pause our everyday lives and gives us the ability to think outside the rush of modern globalisation, essentially; peace.

Turrell’s work, while rich in colour and atmosphere could also be labelled as simplistic and lacking technical detail. Don Gray, an American art critic said that, “…he gives us concepts, mechanisms and technologies unsupported by any "art" in his graphic works (including his weakly-drawn abstractions of light in the rear gallery)”.

While it is easy to see the relation between an engineering schematic and the architectural work behind Turrell’s light installations, it is merely ignorant to dismiss them as purely technical. Where Gray insists Turrell is more of an intellectual engineer I would counter that it is a means to an end. Working with something as scientific and precise as light, astronomy and architecture it is impossible to design artworks (based on these themes) without having to draw up a schematic first. Gray misunderstands the meaning of Turrell’s work and sees only the development work, rather than a unified process merging science and art, with a highly spiritual outcome. Gray goes on to state, “When we think of the cosmos, the universe, the sun, moon and stars, we enter the realm of poetry -- if there is poetry in us. We wonder at incredibly vast distances, time, the explosive, burning force and divinity of light, and our human fate in such a stupefying situation”. Is this not the exact driving force behind Turrell’s works? The time-slowing nature of the skyspaces, the ethereal and perception-distorting light rooms all have poetic qualities. Poetry could even be said to be inferior; words describing whilst light boldly revealing. In fact, I was able to find a poem which can be said to almost exactly describe Turrell’s artworks

Darkness of Despair Crushed amid the tender cool Come light, and warm my soul Andrew Mealey, 1998

Darkness and despair can be perceived as the rush of modern life, the struggle of families with debt, the husband who has lost a wife to cancer or the child without an education – these are conquered by goodness, kindness and the charity of those more fortunate; light, essentially shall prevail and Turrell directly uses light to help reveal good things, pleasure – anything, even, when experiencing his works. Angels, God, the Devine, all are compared to light and warmth and if seeing a skyspace can have even the slightest possibility of allowing you to pause for just one second, then can it not be worshipped also? God, if not pure religious nonsense, can be seen as a human reprieve and then what can Turrell’s work be seen as?

“Is it more intellectual "concept" than passionate, human creative realization?” It is both. One cannot and should not separate these two. Art should be thought out thoroughly and should not be thought about at all. Categorising the processes behind art is simply an exercise in futility, for the six billion minds on the planet all function differently and have unique characteristics. Is it not also true that intellectual concept can also be passionate? Was Plato not passionate about his philosophy or Descartes not passionate about his Cartesian geometry? What Gray fails to understand is the absolute limitless function of art. It is like water; cannot be contained in any specific container, but can swirl to take the shape of whatever presents itself to it or

Angels, God, the Devine, all are compared to light and warmth and if seeing a skyspace can have even the slightest possibility of allowing you to pause for just one second, then can it not be worshipped also? God, if not pure religious nonsense, can be seen as a human reprieve and then what can Turrell’s work be seen as? Consider the following painting, by Don Gray himself:

He has attached to it an explanation of its meaning (something art really shouldn’t need anyway, according to himself), “A major reason for painting this picture, was the further exploration of a detailed realism. The painting's ultimate meaning may be the materialism of society and the commercialism of the art world, which often seems to care more about money than art. Thus the dollar bill in my hand, saying that art must somehow be accomplished despite the forces aligned against it". I doubt highly the credibility of this artist after such uninspired thoughts on Turrell’s work. It’s rather contradictory to lambaste one artist for his conceptualised hybridisation of technical disciplines with art then to paint a self portrait and fail to make your own socio-economical message clear.

A painter who does capture the essence of metaphysicality is Mark Rothko. He can be described quite accurately as the artist Turrell would have been had he been a painter. Starting out with paintings based on chaotic scenes of everyday life, Rothko, over the course of several years, gradually shifted his focus to colour and minimalism – the key elements which make Turrell’s work successful. I’d like to point out that there are three levels to these artists’ works which attribute to their artistic values. The first is the concept, the development. The second is the work itself, the use of colour, space, light, paint etc. The third and most important element is the reflection; experiences which the idealised viewer will ultimately be immersed in. Considering these, it is possible to match the two artists’ works together and draw clear comparisons from such a direct juxtaposition. The following painting is one of Rothko’s first, followed by one painted a few years after:

It depicts a simple train station and is rather visually unpleasant, featuring garish, dull colours and poorly painted shapes; it could easily be viewed as childlike in its represented realism. There is a very distinct feeling coming from the painting that it was not painted with a passion and was even rather an awkward experience for Rothko to create. Over the next few years his paintings gradually became less forced until only simple colours and shapes could be seen. This refinement, often seen in painters, was not present in the development of Turrell’s early works. Partly due to his simple source material, light, and partly due to his extensive development through mathematics, optics and psychology, Turrell was able to develop his works without much experimentation through specific constructions of “final works”. This could be said to lack artistic development, or creative experience, but the fact that significant developmental and initial thought processes were very important in the outcome of Turrell’s first light installations does not mean it can be called “artless”. One of Turrell’s early works, Gard Red (below), can be said to lack a certain something compared with such sublime creations as Atlan, perhaps it is the way in which light has been harnessed and used to trick the mind, or it could have something to do with the combination of intense red light and the triangle shape, which don’t complement each other particularly well. The development of Turrell’s work has been in the way he uses light and space, becoming not only more confident but more ambitious, culminating in his Roden Crater project, a multi-million dollar volcanic observatory located 50 miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona.

One of the most crucial similarities between the paintings of Rothko and the light works of Turrell is the way in which they involve and “activate” the (idealised) viewer. Referring to activate I specifically mean the way in which their works can pause time, create a feeling of awe and connect the viewer with a state of metaphysicality; unconscious freedom of being. It is important to understand that the relationships of colour and form are a means to this end, “The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their colour relationships then you miss the point”. Similarly, Rothko and Turrell emphasise and encourage an intimate relationship between viewer and work,”I also hang the largest pictures so that they must be first encountered at close quarters, so that the first experience is to be within the picture.” The idealised viewer is freely allowed to connect with the painting, much in the same way a passer-by may become entranced by a skyspace, but it is important that an intimacy is prevalent, available only through close physical proximity.

To draw conclusions from this is difficult, as the only real conclusion is to experience the works of both artists and to experience their wonder for yourself. The most crucial factor of the experience is its extremely personal nature; some may hate it, some may find it joyous. With reference to the state of metaphysicality, which is the highest echelon of available emotional experiences, it could be said that any artwork can create this, but for me, Rothko and Turrell’s are the ones which inspire the most wonder.