exhibition statement: Luxelles
AMARIE BERGMAN
A formal re-conveyance of light into the Milky Way Galaxy creates the conceptual basis for Luxelles, an exhibition of transparent and white minimalism. The four independent yet complementary components by Amarie Bergman are a site-specific combination that re-define light and lightness in the spartan architectural space of PS Art Space.
The building’s past incarnation as a warehouse for the storage of wool is inferred in Ellipsis, a component made from felted wool spheres, which subliminally relays star-/moon-/sun-lit paddocks. Finite Volumes in Infinite Light-Space indirectly relates to the ever-continuous transition of the port of Fremantle.
“It is about … seduction…about finding a compactness of fragility. Everytime you have to fully control the materials and approach a kind of miracle aesthetic."1
The work integrates reverence for the transience yet abiding constancy of starlight, moonlight, and sunlight. Beyond anything, light is at the very centre of our existence on Earth. By conceiving enlightenment through fragile objects, Luxelles becomes a phenomenological agent of refinement.
luxelles = an invented diminutive + plural of lux 2
“It was not a matter of hanging “already finished” works but presenting ones that were fluid and flexible, capable with their “elasticity” of taking on configurations to suit the architecture, if not of making the architectural setting a “stage” for their existence…”3
FLOOR LIST
FINITE VOLUMES IN INFINITE LIGHT-SPACE
7 fabricated laser-cut acrylic cubes; each 9 x 9 x 9cm
sculpture series 2022
A series of evenly spaced cubes spans the width of the west wall in a horizontal line. The pattern, however, seems likely that it continues beyond the wall’s edges. One precedent is Donald Judd’s 100 untitled works in mill aluminum. Likewise, the gloss surface here reflects and radiates light in both the finite gallery space and also infinite light-space.
ELLIPSES
136 hand-felted NZ and Nepalese wool (each 2.5cm) scented with naturally derived white talc, visible/ invisible nails; 360 x 260cm
sculpture series 2022
An ellipsis (…) signifies that which is to be continued or having continuity. The work has complete and partial variations of ellipses in horizontal lines that describe a right-angled triangle on the east wall.
HALO II
transparent acrylic (100cm diameter), 6 attached tulle ‘blossom / cloud’ spheres (15cm diameter), micro wire, plastic string, metal hardware
suspended swivelling work 2022
Halo II infers light’s constant rays through the repetitious layers of six ragged-edged cloud-like spheres attached to a transparent acrylic hoop. Through them “… you imagine the perfect "white" of light.”4 The work is sited in the center of an absent 6-planed wood pillar and honours its former/ now invisible presence.
HOLY ARE YOU
vinyl gloss white lettering, Helvetica font; 10 x 425cm
floor installation 2022
With utmost simplicity, the text of a single sentence by 12th century Benedictine abbess, Saint Hildegard von Bingen, reveals the initial concept of the Luxelles exhibition series. “Holy are you, transmuting the perfect into the real.”5 Through its white colour, containing all the wavelengths of visible light, it may transmute – even for a few seconds – the real into the perfect.
Localizing native white flowers (honey myrtle and aniseed myrtle), essential oils will be misted occasionally into the space.
1 Jean Nouvel. Culture Kleptomaniac, by Leo Gullbring. Plaza, January 2008:100
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux The lux (symbol: lx) is the International System of Units derived unit of illuminance, measuring luminous flux per unit area. It is equal to one lumen per square metre.
3 Germano Celant The Story of (my) Exhibitions (Milano: Silvana Editoriale, 2021) 17.
4 Richard Shiff Agnes Martin: The Nineties and Beyond (New York: Art Forum, April 2002).
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_8_40/ai_85459259/
5 O ignis Spiritus Paracliti / Sequence for the Holy Spirit by Hildegard von Bingen
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/H/Hildegardvon/OignisSpirit/index.html
Images:
https://www.amariebergman.com/gallery/luxelles
grace to Merle LaFleur
gratitude to Carole Driver for her discerning encouragement
special appreciation to Paul MacGillivary, Mat Carey and Guilhem Thérond
PS Art Space
22-26 Pakenham Street, Upstairs Gallery
Fremantle WA 6160 Australia
Guilhem Thérond, Manager
12 - 26 March 2022
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