Relatively Light

        Relatively Light explores the role of light in making objects appear and become perceptible through painting. The series constructs a landscape in which three conditions of light coexist, natural light from the sky, neon light falling onto the grass, and a sunflower that appears to glow from within itself, without reference to the influence of other light sources in the space.

 

         These three forms of light are established as conditions within a single visual system. Meanwhile, the light emanating from the sunflower becomes the starting point for an exploration of how imagined light can be made perceptible through painting.

 

         In Relatively Light [1], all three forms of light are established within the same landscape. In Relatively Light [2], the sunflower is directly depicted as a luminous object, with brightness playing a role in defining its appearance. Relatively Light [3] reverses this process. Rather than painting the sunflower directly, it depicts particles and an aura of light emanating from the sunflower as elements through which its appearance is constructed and perceived. The same light is therefore explored and created through different pictorial conditions, shifting from a property of the object to something that brings the object into perception.

 

            Painting becomes a space for examining the relationship between light, objects, and perception. Light does not merely illuminate surfaces to make them visible; it can also participate in constructing what we see. This series asks how much of an object we need to see directly in order to perceive its presence, how the language of light in painting can communicate meaning, and how an image can emerge through the conditions of this language of light.

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          The title Relatively Light refers to the status of light as something that changes according to its relationships with objects, space, and the act of looking. Light has no fixed function or meaning, but changes according to the relationships within the system through which it appears.