Sea Level, 2005, Suyama Space, Seattle, WA
1,700 fine gauge wires stretched parallel to the gallery floor at varying heights, forming a three-dimensional plane, measuring 24'x17'x4", that floated just above the surface. Reflected light travels along the wires, vanishing and reappearing with the shifting natural conditions of the space and the position of the viewer.
first light, last, 2006, Portland, OR
video stills
An installation of projected video and multi-channel sound at the Portland Art Center’s Light and Sound Gallery is a meditation on the cusps of darkness and light, dreaming and waking, sound and silence, and a hopeful reminder of light in the midst of winter’s darkness. The visual component consists of hundreds of digital photo sequences of cloudless sky patches in the moments just before nightfall and dawn. These still images have been strung together as animated video vignettes, allowing the viewer to visibly perceive slow transitional cycles as they move through various shades of rich, saturated blue, from azure, to deep indigo, to nearly black; this “blueness” becomes a form or quality of light in and of itself. The result is at once abstract and hyper-real. The sound component is derived from a single 40-minute field recording made on the beach at Kalaloch, Washington while watching night visibly descend. This recording was radically filtered to extract twelve individual frequency bands that fade slowly in and out, hovering on the threshold of audibility, a shimmering presence that suggests a sense of anticipation or becoming. Collaboration with composer/sound artist Steve Peters.
Red Shift, 2002, Locker Plant, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX
Two hundred-fifty glass microscope slides positioned along the floor, mapping the movement of the sun from east to west during a nine-hour period. The glass slides projected continuously shifting patterns of light across the ceiling and walls of the room.
Alchemy, 2000, Old San Ysidro Church, Corrales, New Mexico
Alchemy, 2005, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA
Originally titled Alchemy of Desire, this collaborative installation with sound artist Steve Peters, was first presented in September 2000 as a site-specific installation at the historic San Ysidro Church in Corrales, New Mexico. The visual component consisted of thirteen spun yellow brass bowls (26"dx6.5"h) set upon suspended steel plates (30"x30"). The sound is derived from the whispering voices of 32 people reading written responses we received from over 300 people in fifteen countries to our invitation to imagine change in the world. Individual voices are heard through transducers affixed to the bowls that transmit sound directly into the metal, causing them to resonate. Heard clearly in the first bowl, the voices are electronically transformed into increasingly pure, abstract tones as they flow through the space in a quiet wave and gradually subside into silence. Random groupings of unprocessed voices are played at very low volume through small speakers distributed throughout the gallery. Since 2000, Alchemy has exhibited at Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY, 2003; Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA, 2005; Portland Art Center, Portland, OR, 2007.
Article in Art in America, April 2001
