Sculpture: Unwoven Light

"Unwoven Light" by South Korean sculptor Soo Sunny Park

On exhibit at the Rice University Art Gallery at Houston, Texas
Photographed by Nash Baker

"Suspended from the walls and ceiling, thirty-seven individually sculpted units are arranged as a graceful, twisting flow of abstract form. ... Park notes, “We don’t notice light when looking so much as we notice the things light allows us to see. Unwoven Light captures light and causes it to reveal itself, through colorful reflections and refractions on the installation’s surfaces and on the gallery floor and walls.”

The structure of chain link fencing is similar to the grid of fibers arranged horizontally and vertically on a weaving loom. However, Park uses the grid structure as a means to “unweave.” Wired into each open cell of the chain link is a cut-out shape of iridescent Plexiglas. Iridescence in nature is seen in the sheen of peacock feathers, fish scales, and butterfly wings, appearing as a myriad of colors that appear to change with the angle at which they are viewed. Here the iridescent properties of the coated Plexiglas serve to unweave light, each shape turning from clear to colorful in light’s presence. Explains Park, “Like a net, the sculpture is a filter that is meant to capture the light that is already there and force it to reveal itself. Now we can see it, the light, in purple shadows and yellow-green reflections that both mirror the shape of the fence and restructure the space they inhabit.”

Each visitor’s experience of Unwoven Light will be unique, depending upon the time of day, ratio of natural to artificial light, precise angle of viewing, and even the number of people in the gallery. It is possible for two people to stand next to one another and each have a completely different experience of the dynamic presence of light."

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