Sungazing in The Sunset Room

 

If you stare into the sun for too long, you can go blind–but nothing is more addictive than sungazing or getting lost in the great golden globe.  I’ve always been drawn to water and sunsets, especially during the golden hour.  It’s easy to get lost watching the passage of time as the water softly and slowly rolls back and forth into the horizon.  Although sunsets are quiet and peaceful moments for me, I still feel invigorated by the electric energy of the sun.  Documenting the changing light and colors as they reflect different weather conditions, from overcast and cloudy, to hazy or foggy–it’s all beautiful and different each time.

All of the sunset images in the Sunset Room were shot with my iPhone on the fly.  A famed photographer once said “the best camera you have is the one you have with you.”  For me, the iPhone is a perfect example of this: immediately accessible, quick, and easy to operate in a pinch.  This technical simplicity allows you to be able to not only enjoy a fleeting moment, but capture it forever.  Before, point and shoots were ideal for these exact reasons…but now phones are the new compact cameras, and there is even a word for this special kind of art-making.  iPhonegraphy is a new form of creative expression that allows anyone with a mobile device the ability to just focus on the art, not the technical steps to get there.  The power of shooting, sharing, and editing in just a few minutes on the go is hard to compete with.  Mobile photography allows me to concentrate on creating and being more involved in the environment around me instead of worrying or stressing about external factors–back to basics.

To re-create the same feeling one has when witnessing a sunset, I decided to play with the senses and change the color of the light in our presentation space.  With Dan Flavin‘s creative color work in the back of my mind, I found orange fluorescent light filters to illuminate the prints.  My intent is to evoke the feeling as if you were present in the image, and looking directly into the sun.  By adjusting the environment we typically view images, there’s a new energy and feeling to the experience and the imagery itself.

Come see #theSunsetRoom for yourself this weekend at Art of Studio as part of our new show on view for the month, Venice: A Village by the Sea.  8×8 Sunset Prints are available for $25 on Kwakushop or drop by Art of Studio (1346 Abbot Kinney).  To commemorate our favorite sunsets, we created a softcover 5×5 book full of beautiful and vibrantly colored skies and setting suns.  Find a copy on Kwakushop.