FIVE THINGS WORTH YOUR TIME AT EXPO CHICAGO
Expo can be a wonderfully overwhelming experience, a firehose of great art and programming [...]. Here's what caught my attention in the time I was there. [...]
Casper Brindle at Oliver Cole Gallery
In Brindle’s pigmented acrylic “Light Glyph” series of wall pieces, one plus one is much more than two. The sum of the parts, a long rectangle of pigmented acrylic inside of a box also made of pigmented acrylic, equals an object in which color pulses and laps at your eyes in waves. It’s not immediately evident how the effect is being produced. Optical illusionism, once one can make sense of the mechanism for the effect can seem trivial like a parlor trick. But sometimes there’s a mysterious remainder that rewards sustained engagement with the work. Being able to explain the chemistry of photosynthesis, for instance, does nothing to mute its mysterious extravagance. Brindle’s work provides a taste of that mystery, where the parlor trick of an optical illusion can open onto the existential mystery of light and color, where the particle/wave dilemma of photons bursts into pure energy for a minute and the pulsing color starts to align with your heartbeat, and thoughts arise like, “yes, maybe things will work out, and there’s order in the universe, a plan is at work that I can only glimpse…” and then somebody clicks by in heels wearing a sequin nightgown over a track suit and you’re back in the festival hall at Navy Pier.
John Preus
New City Art
To read the whole article, click here
