On Saturday, October 12, I visited around 12 Chelsea galleries. One gallery that struck me in particular was the Gladstone Gallery. Damian Ortega is currently having a solo exhibition here. When you first walk into the show, you see a few sculptures on a table and you also see a framed drawing of the alphabet. After looking at the curvy letters, the viewer then walks into a large darkened space, that has bent steel sculptures, suspended from the ceiling. The lighting in the room, is so focused that it produces a specific shadow of each sculpture onto the gallery floor. These steel sculptures are very large, and it intrigued me, how the artist hung each one relative to the previous. Ortega also managed to have the works hanging in rows and columns relative to one another.
After contemplating these sculptures, it finally clicked for me, as to why the artist gave so much presence to the shadows. The shadow of the sculpture in front of me almost made a Y on the ground. This was very interesting to myself. As I pondered why this shadow resembled a Y, it then became clear that the artist formed the steel into a shape, that when the light hits the shape at the right angle, it forms a shadow of a letter on the floor. Ortega, constructed sculptures that produced shadows from A-Z. He also hung them in left to right order. This order can only be seen when standing in the doorway of the room.
To get more information about Damian Ortega or his current exhibition click on the link below
http://www.gladstonegallery.com/artist/damian-ortega/work#&panel1-1
No comments:
Post a Comment