Colin McCahon, Are there not twelve hours of daylight, 1970, synthetic polymer paint on unstretched canvas, 207 x 260cm. Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, in special recognition of E.W. Gardiner, 1985
Published in Issue 02 of The Art Paper (April - June 2022)
The contemporary, practical, non-metaphoric meaning of the word “light” is, of course, the electromagnetic energy of the sun perceivable by human eyes. Yet light is equally a medium of cognition in all art-making. This is useful in understanding the concrete, empirical realities marking composition and thought.
One cold, white, bursting line suggests dawn light emerging; while a ‘white light’ angel enters the top right corner. Light falls through a door, offering a path toward the viewer. Are these marks ironic or filled with faith? Maybe faith in art?
Our interaction with classic domestic light shades, and ample wiring that oscillates between order and disorder, opens the imagining memory to potential ‘lights of ideas’ around the home: love, comfort, familiarity, the search and need for things.
Artificial light is made real in Culbert's poetic invention of three-dimensional space, inviting our minds and eyes to be amazed at the tilting planetary field of lights unfolding above and casting the perspective of the room in a new light.
In the slowly reverberating rhythms of Light Painting, there is no end and no beginning wherein lies the ultimate light of art for Chartwell. The reality of knowledge is dependent on shared empathy and sense-based awareness, both conscious and preconscious.
Triple meanings of light operate simultaneously: the fluorescent electronically processed glow, tubes that deliver layers of light lines and reflections; and indigenous spiritual references of relationships and geometric rhythms. Creating a gestalt field, the whole is greater than its parts.
