Arte Al Limite
Arte al Limite magazine cover feature Grimanesa Amoros light sculpture Lotus
Arte al Limite magazine cover feature Grimanesa Amoros interview | light sculpture Azure
Arte al Limite magazine cover feature Grimanesa Amoros light installation Hedera
Arte al Limite magazine cover feature Grimanesa Amoros light installation Hedera close-up
Arte al Limite magazine cover feature Grimanesa Amoros interview | light sculpture Azure
Revista n° 100 | Edición Especial
June 2022 by Natalia Vidal Toutin
The powerful forces of nature and the strength in human beings stitch together in a complex and sometimes inescapable textile. Archetypal shapes, opulent forces and intricate bonds define the outstanding and invaluable legacy that Grimanesa Amor6s contributes to art. This is a story of convergence: chronicles of a long-established reflection focused on unveiling reality. The light we see everywhere, which allows for the existence of the day, is the result of electromagnetic radiation on the visible spectrum. This sounds complex and confusing, because it is. Grimanesa Amor6s knows this. She overcomes this and works under this fluid and rippling concept to showcase it to viewers who cannot do anything other than stop to contemplate its splendor. light is a mystery quantified by physics, but physics cannot encompass the scope of this naturally occurring act of invisible magic. Scientists may disagree on this last point, but though light has a fluid, versatile appearance, no intervention can limit it or lead it to be confined to a finite condition. II leaks in and flows to envelop everything In its way. Each event that redirects lights atomic wave enables moments of utter perfection: the iridescent reflection on a bubble, the striking green of the northern lights, a multifaceted rainbow, or the shifting of the sunrise.
This infinitely malleable and elastic quality that light reproduces with spontaneous elegance and simplicity has captivated Grimanesa Amor6s since her childhood.
“When I was a child, the Pacific Ocean seemed to me an enormous body of water. Its tumultuous and fierce waves frothy bubbles on the shore. I used to sit on the shore as I examined and played with them, fascinated by the way light bounced off their Iridescent surface. This, and the way the bubbles seemed to breathe and move, inflating and deflating, inspired my later work,” the artist shares.
Grimanesa, a Peru native living in New York, had a childhood filled with curiosity and awareness. The interest in light awakened such inspiration within her that, over time, It became a driving force for the material and technical explorations in her artwork. There were no bounds to her explorations, no borders in her experimentation that constrained the gravitational attraction she felt towards light. The interesting thing is how the artist leads an argument of unexpected duality, making use of something so present and routine to frame a question. On the one hand, this question exalts -before the attentive eyes of her viewers- the possibilities offered by tight just by existing. On the other hand, it evinces the tangled and sometimes chaotic way in which society is structured through its relationships.
“For a piece to connect with the viewers, it must have been inspired by the community it is Immersed in. Every one of my sculptures has its own unique process. I always inspect the site where my sculptures will be exhibited. I work there, regardless of the sometimes adverse weather, and I su-pervlse the materialization of the piece so it is executed the way I envisioned,” Grimanesa describes, referring to a process that she repeats every time she creates a new piece.
“Attention to detail is essential. When I plan the lighting sequences, it is similar to composing a musical piece. Every note has its own moment in time and space. Watching viewers interact with my work will never cease to amaze me,” the artist admits, talking about the moment In which the work is revealed.
Conceptually, Amoros works by using something I would call iridescent cores, tumultuous forces and labyrinth-like links. Approaching her pieces is disruptive from the beginning. You cannot contemplate Grimanesa Amoros’ artwork without cutting the train of thought you had in mind at the time. You just stop.
This need for interruption is what she has managed to do throughout the years, encompassing several methods of execution that have consolidated her artistic career. Grimanesa is a great architect of reflective pauses and bold questioning. It must be because she was an unintentional witness of physical and epistemological phenomena throughout her life and did not need great flashes or summons from reality to identify them. For this same reason, she discovered light within the great forces of nature and the infinite quality of this concept that permeates and categorically defines everything she does: “Light constantly changes, it’s a fluid element, which is why I don’t define it as solid matter. On the contrary, it’s important to consider our relationship with light and its ephemeral power.”
On her essence and practices
Thinking that reality can be determined by a perfect order with a deliberate composition is a blurred and fuzzy mystery. Grimanesa is not just aware of this complexity, she makes it visible. Society, nature and all the factors that affect the rudimentary and vital passage of time interact with each other in such a way that it seems practically impossible, yet it Is real. Small and large-scale phenomena narrate the inexhaustible and everlasting nature of the roots and derivations of experience. All of these are conditioned, not just by the clutter of connections we intuitively ponder and establish as we go along, but also by the novel and unknown enigma that manages to perpetuate an underlying and imperfect order that takes the reins, in spite of all the opportunities that humans have to take control over their existence, doing so against their will, evolution, progress or growth. This paradoxically complex and determined construction the artist presents, forces us to stop while it offers a marvelous and generous dose of magic and grace. AAL
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