Volume Gallery, Chicago, IL, Nov 3rd – Dec 16th, 2023
Achromatic surfaces at first glance subsequently reveal radiant auras of subtly colored light. The concealed verso sides of the pieces employ surfaces painted fluorescent colors to reflect glowing ambient light on the surrounding wall. With these sculptural works, shades reveal gestures that capture a passage of light, simulations of the orange light at dawn or an hour passing in the afternoon. The work is minimal, presenting moments to hold still.

In the tentative
darkness of the
raisins there was
half of the
sun
then the shadow
of the past
From “No Sky” by Etel Adnan, translation from French by Sarah Riggs

Chicago Cultural Center, Exhibit Hall, October 8, 2022 – January 29, 2023

Exact Dutch Yellow presents abstracted, atmospheric sculptural light installations that refuse to offer a singular prescription for how to view them. To stand in front of, or rather within, these works is to experience the phenomenon of color both optically and physically but with an awareness that whatever you experience will be unique and ineffable. 
A play on words and the act of naming, the exhibition title Exact Dutch Yellow references how subjective both the impression and classification of color was and remains. In Patrick Syme’s book, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, “Dutch Orange” is described by the crest of a gold-crest wren, the common marigold, and a streak of red orpiment, an arsenic sulfide mineral. When the noted English biologist Charles Darwin embarked on his now famous journey aboard the HMS Beagle between 1831-1826, he brought along Syme’s book and used it extensively. Darwin often used the exact phrasing to describe the creatures he encountered, for example a “French grey” octopus that changed shades from a “Hyacinth red” to a “Chesnut brown.” Darwin, however, occasionally ad-libbed, altering “Dutch Orange” to “Exact Dutch Yellow” when he published his Beagle Zoology Notes.
At the heart of the exhibition, underscored by its title, is the tacit acknowledgment that for all of its visibility, for all its presence, color—or at least how we name, classify, and experience it—remains subjective if not outright illusive.

Chiaro Oscuro—Luftwerk’s second exhibition at Volume Gallery, Chicago—is an exploration of the varying modes and forms of gradient light. The word chiaroscuro literally means bright/dark and refers to the use of contrasts within art compositions. Situating this concept of contrast, difference and changeability as a point of departure, four light-based sculptural works illuminate the gallery, evoking a sense of flux. By using the power of reflection and perception to imply and summon a point of disappearance—a threshold is invoked.