“Light Painting”, 1999 by Wayne Strattman.
Wayne Strattman unites artistry and technology in his Boston studio to create designs that find appreciative audiences from Hollywood to Vienna, Rio de Janeiro to Las Vegas, and just about everywhere in between.
From the bottled-lightning fascination of plasma globes…to our unique and exciting flagship product, Luminglas™, works by Strattman Design do more than simply draw attention or stimulate conversation…they generate excitement.
An engineer and a physicist by training, Wayne also applies his considerable skills to developing innovative practical applications for the technologies developed in his art, as both an independent developer and as a consultant to other developers.
Wayne’s website: www.strattman.com
“Untitled”, 2010 by Philip Vaughn.
I have spent a good deal of my working life engaged in a conversation on the relationship of art, and most especially sculpture, to the public environment. I have always felt uncomfortable with the idea that art was destined to be an elitist activity that can only be found within the confines of museums and galleries. I like the notion that art can relate to a wider audience, that it can survive and indeed thrive, out in the streets, where it can engage a much broader cross section of the public.
In this environment the relationship between sculpture and architecture & space planning becomes a very important aspect. My work has drawn me into a close working relationship with a number of architects including Theo Crosby of Pentagram in London and most recently Jon Jerde’s firm here in Los Angeles and Mike Rogers at HKS Architects.
I have also been drawn to the idea of the relationship between sculpture and the landscape, between a created object and the natural environment. The forces that drive the ideas behind my recent work are also the forces that form natural organisms and events. The spiral, the wave, the vortex, the organizational forces of nature. I have become fascinated most recently in the Fibonacci series of numbers and its relationship to natural growth. These are elemental concepts that connect the artifice of my own work to the observation of natural form and in particular, its dynamic geometric language.
Philip’s website: www.philipvaughn.net
“God Is”, 2011 by Stephen Anderson.
God made me do it!
It is easy to give blame or give credit for our successes or failures and for disasters or rescues to something that is ‘beyond’ humans. But doesn’t that ultimately diminish ourselves? Or let us ‘off the hook’ to being responsible?
Stephen’s website: www.mixedmediaexpressions.com
“Untitled (Face Series)”, 2008 by Brian Coleman.
Article on Brian: http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-06/news/ol-1862_1_neon-sculptures
“Bill’s Bottle Shop”, 1994 by Bill Concannon.
This piece started out as an autobiography retelling a life I never lived. But who’s to say this isn’t me?
For a long time it’s tickled me that glass is at once a very precious (pound per pound) fine art medium and also a thoughtless, throw-away material. No Deposit—No Return.
It’s been said that in ancient Egypt the first people who made glass were priests. Modern glassworkers don’t forget this. It’s bewitching stuff. Whether it is a Lalique crystal hood ornament (available in the museum gift store) gracing a suburban coffee table or a broken car window glittering like so many discarded diamonds in the first light of morning, no one can deny that glass is a beautiful substance.
(I first made the Bill’s Bottle Shop for an installations show organized by Marvin Lipovsky for the 1994 GAS Conference in Oakland. At the time I was reacting partly to the precious and expensive nature of the much of the glass art then.)
Bill’s website: www.aargon-neon.com
“Vertical Rain” 1999 by Ray Howlett.
VISUAL EXPERIENCE. In my artwork, seeing is not believing or knowing. Initially my work strongly engages perception from the viewer. That quickly yields to giving their cognitive understanding a jolt. My art does something that most art does not do; it separates perception from cognition and allows for a transcendental experience to dominate. We are left with a visual mystery that our eyes cannot believe. My work is more about visual experience than perception or understanding.
MY LIGHT AND SPACE IS CONTAINED IN AN ELECTRIC LIGHT SCULPTURE. My strong effects are unlike the 1960’s “California light and space” artists that only achieved a subtle effect from working “light and space” into their open environment approach of site-specific installations.
MY APPROACH TO ART is to work only in an original way, and make my optical art as well developed and memorable as I possibly can. I prefer elegance, found within organic symmetry. I think of my art form as portals: an opening into a new kind of space that can be interactively explored. Whatever one can see inside my transparent glass sculpture is more important that the outside shape. My visuals have a sense of contemporary kaleidoscope art.
EVENTUALLY I DISCOVERED SYMBOLIC ELEMENTS OF “LIFE” IN MY OPTICAL ART. Elements of life include: inner light, inner rhythms, organic symmetry, movement, inner-reflecting-self-awareness, inspiration to interact, mandalas as spiritual circles of life.
I USE TECHNOLOGY MATERIALS DEVELOPED WITHIN MY LIFETIME: Transparent and reflective dichroic color, on float glass; front-surface-aluminum-mirrors; compact-fluorescent lamps; all held together with silicone glue and sheet metal. This is pure art and technology, used in mixed media sculpture and mixed media constructions.
MY OPTICAL ILLUSION ART FORM COULD NOT HAVE BEEN INVENTED AT ANY OTHER TIME IN HISTORY. My main material of dichroic glass color was first used in 1951 as light filters to produce color in movies. Now is the age of technology and some fine art is evolving to take a new, more current, look.
Ray’s website: www.rayhowlett.com
“Phase Transition”, 2010 by David Brokaw.
My work begins with a fascination for relationships and interactions between organic and technological mechanisms. Living in an ever increasingly technologically augmented society has lead me to question if a blind appropriation of technology can cause it to act like a seductive virus robbing us of our senses. Many feel that what it means to be human is to be augmented by technology no matter how fragmented and extended. If this is in fact the case what are the social implications of this extension and fragmentation? How can a digital connection made possible by mass media and social networking full of inherent social stigmas be objectified?
I employ physics, my own sense of humor and pop culture references in an effort to create new existences. These new phenomenon are the physical embodiment of a digital relationship. In this body of work, pop icons are selected that I see as being magnanimous personalities. Celebrating their excessive spirit, social stigmas and the connections they have to an ever-increasing thirst for fame. The works embody a shift in contemporary culture toward digital impersonal connections experienced between humans through new media. Freeing these fragments of a digital embodiment and giving them the ability to exist in time and space as tangible metamatic sculptures allows them to create on their own, recontextualizing their existence and giving them a physical presence. Inherent time based and ephemeral qualities exude the persona of self-destructing machines. Awake or asleep, dead or alive these works are a by product of the infection technology has on the organic world.
David’s website: www.davidbrokawstudio.com
“His Masters Voice”, 1987 by Maurice Gray.
“…strips of clean linen – the fiber itself, once painstakingly spun and woven on the crudest of wooden looMs, now appears almost foreign in a coUntry where synthetic Materials are the future (where solid wood is approached with tip-toe trepidations), - not only provide a preservative shroud for the once supple flesh and Muscle, but also maintain the human form and familiar outline as an enduring image of remembrance for those who feel it immediatelY iMportant to engage in eager eavesdropping into the very personal history of the corporeal entity exposed frozen in Its bondage; also too, the linen binds the ever-more toUghening bands of tendon to prevent any skewedness of liMb which Might cause the observer to disassociate the form akimbo from the blissful eternally sleeping Man-soUl they perceive through the linen barrier shaded by MeMorY and enhanced by iMagination – this perception, however, eventUally provides the ultiMate rendering of the twisted cadaver as past gliMpses and subconsciouslY stifled griMaces blend in the minds’ eyes of these intrUders to the sarcophagus, a suitable private punishMent to work on their collective consciences – yet sleek and clean the outward friend enshrined, perfuMed and displaYed in the style Most correct for the popUlar religion of the Mind of the hour of the irresponsible, as if the silent participant readily welcoMes the stares and gapes of realization of time and self, upon closer look the coarseness of the fabric is exposed, a tuft of hair pushes though here, the jingle of a wire ornament, the clatter of a bead bangle, a glissando of scintillate reflections for a hot raY of sunlight bouncing off a small plane of exposed enamel that itself suggests the hideous death-smile of the reality of the revenge of the entombed…?”
Maurice’s website: www.fullerton.edu/arts/art/faculty/gray.html
“One Dozen”, 2011 by Ryan Ross.
The work titled One Dozen consists of a dozen eggs in their original carton. The eggs have been hollowed out and red LEDs have been inserted inside. At first glance, the eggs appear to be unaltered. However, a red button in the corner of the base suggests there is more. Inside the box, there is circuitry and a microcontroller that controls the behavior of the work. The work is about chance and surprise. The idea for this work came to me one morning while making breakfast. I cracked an egg open to make an omelet and to my surprise two yolks came out.
I thought it was interesting that I didn’t really know what was in an egg until I cracked it open. When the viewer approaches the work it is evident that the red button is calling to them. After pressing the button, one of the eggs will begin to slowly start to pulsate and glow red. This pulsing glow gives the sense that the egg is breathing. This behavior is intended to surprise the viewer with something unpredictable. The notion of chance is added by randomizing which egg will glow when the button is pressed. This sense of chance is increased by introducing many other patterns or behaviors that the work can display. For example, three eggs might glow, all the eggs might glow, or any combination or sequence.
Ryan’s website: www.ryanross.com
