Chain-link ripples with radiance in "Unwoven Light"

By Emily Nichol     4/10/13 7:00pm

Soo Sunny Park's converts Rice Gallery into a landscape of surreal, shining space with her new installation "Unwoven Light," which opened Thursday, April 11.

The work, constructed of chain-link fencing suspended from the ceiling and filled with tinted acrylic plexiglass pieces, swells and billows throughout the gallery. Light reflects off of each plexiglass diamond individually, making each piece shift from deep purple to magenta, from chartreuse to turquoise and bright yellow. Refractions of multicolored light and the shadows of each sculptural unit creep up the wall and smatter across the floor, rising, falling and changing color as the natural light that filters into the gallery changes. The work twists and undulates in the space, a dynamic fusion of natural impulses - it is reminiscent of fish scales or exotic bird feathers - and pure abstraction. As visitors walk through the gallery, their own viewing angles as well as how the synthetic and natural light hits the work determines how it looks for them, creating a wholly singular, personal viewing experience.

Park uses the light itself as a sculptural element; the reflections are as captivating as the sculptural units. In thinking about the project, Park said she was fascinated by the concept of light as a medium. 

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"The idea is that light is everywhere; you can't see without light. But you don't think about it," Park said. 

While the gallery is lit by artificial light sources -  LED lights and spotlights - natural light also penetrates into the gallery space, making its own effects with each cloud's passage. With this piece, the viewer cannot help noticing the light filtering through each shining acrylic piece. The work, which extends outside the boundaries of the gallery's glass walls, invites the viewer into a larger-than-life kaleidoscope. 

Indeed, Park said she had another kind of scope in mind when creating her project.

"As the sunlight comes through, you'll see things like when you look through a microscope and you can see all the cells ... When a ray of sunlight comes through, you can see all these crisp circles all over the walls," Park said. 

Much of the piece is left up to natural phenomena - the angle and intensity of the sunlight - which Park said is one of her artistic interests.

Park said that, throughout her work, she has been interested in boundaries and the space between the mind and body. Charged by her own childhood experiences in Korea, as well as facing the challenge of learning English after moving to the states, Park said she has been investigating liminal spaces. 

"I think that thoughts don't exist in English or Korean, but that they have their own language," Park said. "They exist in an in-between space, between two things. With this project, I use translucent material and also this light that is here but we aren't conscious of. By filtering it through, we see this kind of barrier or skin that lets us think about how this space differs from others."

"Unwoven Light" invites the viewer to not just witness, but also participate in this in-between space where light turns from invisible to visible, to physically be in the space and become conscious of the light passing through a filter.

Park's meticulous work on each unit is evident. Without any poles or skeleton materials, the chain-link fence needed to be welded at each joint to stay in each meandering shape, a difficult task for such thin metal. Each of the 37 units required hundreds of perfectly administered welding joints. Furthermore, every single piece of plexiglass, of which there are thousands, had to be cut into one of nine shapes, sanded on both sides and have two holes drill pressed before being wired by hand into the fencing. Somehow, the execution looks effortless and floats as if it were a natural found object. 

Park said she chose the chain-link fence as her medium because it is common but mysterious. 

"Everyone has seen it all their lives ..., but one day, I was just driving, and I saw something that looked like it was floating, but as I got closer, I realized it was just stuck into the chain-link fence," Park said.

Park said the graceful whorls of each sculptural unit were actually not her original idea for their shape. 

"I originally wanted a spherical form, but the fence is rectilinear, and if gives one way, it doesn't want to fold the other," Park said.

Park said that in the end, she was inspired by the mountains and rolling hills of Vermont and New Hampshire, where she lives. She said inspiration also came to her from other natural phenomena, like billowing waves and rippling water.

The twinkling sculptural bodies and ethereal, constantly changing light-effects of "Unwoven Light" produce a truly absorbing sensory experience. By mixing everyday materials with a touch of the organic, Park has created an ever-changing, life-size rainbow that speaks as much about the human experience of light as it does about the enchanting nature of art. 

The installation will be open April 11-Aug. 30 2013. Gallery admission and events are free and open to the public.

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