Cathy Cunningham-Little

Misguided Isomer 2013

glass, LED lights

Cathy Cunningham-Little Artist Statement

LIGHT BOXES:
My series of Lightboxes explore visual sensation and color interactions as a means to create a dialogue between the art and the viewer's spatial perception. Using light as a field of energy I seek to create multiple interpretations through a relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effects.The edges of color are blurred to create a central haze of form/color/energy resulting in an illusory variance in luminance and size.These pieces are a time consuming, labor intensive, close-work process involving meticulous cutting of layer upon layer of diffracting and colored films.They are then backlit with varying shades of neon light. All of these works seem to breathe and pulse and shape-shift before our very eyes. When the work is approached the viewer might attempt to focus, but due to the refractions created, this is not possible.These pieces are transformed as much in the perception of the viewer as they are in the artistic process and actual material outcome. Through our own perceptual physics, they encourage awareness of the state of our consciousness and the shape of our perception.

REFLECTION SERIES:
The series of work that I call my "Reflection" pieces are an ongoing investigation using light as both medium and subject.They explore the energy embedded in subconscious perceptions and calculations, the things you see and know without realizing it.

I consider these works as self-illuminating studies in geometry and saturated color.They express color compositions in space and the structural properties of light.An emphasis is placed on the dematerialization of methods of conveyance of light and color to create a greater importance of the experiential nature of my artwork and the viewer.The viewers are asked to become active participants in a dialogue with the work as they experience the dissolution of boundaries of substance and space.

I create these works with minimal materials to produce ephemeral images of colored shadows and reflections. A selection of metals are vaporized and deposited onto the surface of glass which is cut to specific shapes. It is then strategically mounted on the wall with carefully positioned white light sources to create colorful shapes.The reflections of the glass shards are mirror images of the transmitted color, but they are not identical. They form asymmetrical shapes: the elements remain the same but the image and the reflections do not overlap. These perceptual ambiguities ask the viewer to reconsider their preconceived notions of the real and the unreal.

See The Exhibition