Light Affects

Welcome to The Gallery of Crossed Destinies.

For the first time in over a decade, the room you are now standing in is flooded with the slanted natural light of the sun. It is the opening of these windows that provides the concept for this exhibition. Light is essential to life. We derive the oxygen we breathe from plants that require light to photo-synthesize. Light provides warmth. Light is vital.

As a plants man, I know that light is essential to placement. In a north-facing window, geraniums grow long and leggy quickly. Given a southern exposure, they will delight with abundant blooms and a bushy habit. However, violets, ferns, and shade-loving plants will burn and die in such light. Even cut flowers respond to light. At home, arrange a vase of tulips perfectly. They will bend and grow toward light, arranging themselves as they must.

So light affects.

The objects you see are all reflections of light. Some literally: the morning light glinting upon the gold of the olive leaf wreath. How valuable the gold, for it shimmers and dances to delight the eye. Some figuratively: the warm, yellow hues in Georgia O’Keeffe’s Skunk Cabbage imply the heat generated by the specimen as it emerges beneath the snow in the wild.

Edward Hopper casts his nude woman in the seemingly harsh light of Morning in a City. Her weary face looks out the window, into the daylight. The far-off horizon of George Inness’s Twilight is bathed in warm tones of pink, orange, and yellow, setting a serene scene. This land would look dissimilar at noon, for it would be bright green and blue.

St. John the Evangelist was a close friend of Jesus, “the light of the world” to some. His faith is his light. Light within. The Head of a devotee seeks, perhaps, enlightenment. The two would have much to talk about…

Louise Nevelson’s hob-goblin Sky Wave seems to eat the light cast upon it. The blackness defies the details of its composition, except upon close examination. From across the room, it appears a dark shadow. Robert Motherwell’s Open No. 175 portrays a sumptuous, yellow background slashed with darkly affected strokes, perhaps a fine afternoon done wrong by a few missteps.