top of page
COLOUR, LIGHT & LOCATION
Dylan Bedford | RGSHW | A Level Investigation
STEPHEN KNAPP
.jpg)
Knapp was an American artist, born in Massachusetts who ‘paints with light’. He had an innate fascination with light and was creating art that interacts with it for thirty years, his intrigue, he says, stems from ‘what it can do and for the effect it has on us’.
Years of experimentation and research carried his work from sculptures to the stunning, vibrant light paintings, which is what I am mainly interested in.
HOW
The lightpaintings used dichroic filters which are very accurate colour filters. Depending on the filter they reflect short wavelengths and transmit long wavelengths of light, or the other way around. They also reflect light at different depths meaning they reflect a broader beam.
They make really interesting effect and is why you can see a gradient in some of the colours on the lightpaintings.
Although in Knapp’s most recent work he tailored and adapted the filter to suit his projects.
There is a lot to consider when making them, even the brackets and their shadows have a role is the creation.
.jpg)
.jpg)
THE ATMOSPHERE
Stephen Knapp harnessed the power of colour and light and used them to their full extent. His pieces are delicate yet vibrant concoctions of colour, light and shadow which transform the environment. He received many commissions to work on buildings putting his artistic eye into use by defining the atmosphere of wherever he worked.
RELEVANCE TO MY WORK
Knapp is the prime example of an artist who used colour and light to give a room emotion. Not only does his work bare enormous relevance to what I have been previously doing but also is something that interests me. The lightpaintings combine my love of physics and art, it demonstrates the science of light yet also the more artistic/emotive view of it. I really like the clean and vibrant colours of the pieces and will use this as I progress. I will also bear in mind why Knapp was fascinated by it; because of the effect it has on us. Furthermore, despite his interest in the effect light has, I feel like Knapp didn’t explore this idea to its full potential and that most of his work was quite homogeneous. I believe that interesting results can be achieved if I push this idea to the extreme i.e. I feel that the light paintings are all of a similar tone and palette and that there is still space for experimentation.
.jpg)
quick 2d responses
2D Responses
As a first, quick, direct response to Stephen Knapp I used ink and a straw to create this. My aim was to capture some of the colour and dynamism of his lightpaintings. This piece didn't come out as well as I thought as it went into smaller veins.
Knapp's lightpaintings are huge installations made up of lots of different filters which results in lots of different rays in all different directions. Therefore I made this quick pen drawing to simplify the shapes so I can respond to it more easily.
I liked the effect of the previous pen drawing but wanted more contrast in the colours so I mounted the shapes onto black card. However the black is quite glossy which takes away from the contrast.
Here I wanted to experiment with moving the location of the colour. So I used the stencil from the piece to the left to get the black shapes. In my opinion there is a noticeable change in mood when the colours are inverted.
My attempts
My Attempts
As a direct, 3D response to Stephen Knapp I wanted to produce my own light paintings. I started by creating these circular rigs which act as small ecosystems of colour and light. I cut shards of coloured acetate and arranged them at angles so that they interact in interesting ways. One of them has more angular shards whereas with the other I tried more curved shapes. I did this to experiment on the effect of shape. The photo below is after sticking one to the wall and using a torch to cast the coloured shadows. This result was much better than I expected, and it produced very defined shadows and bright colours.
These photos are the results of using each of the rigs and holding the torch at different angles. These were very promising and, while being more simple systems, I could see some knapp-esque characteristics, especially in the interaction of the shadows.
I also noticed how the actual plastic itself seems to blend into the shadows, particularly in the top left photo, they seem to disappear in Knapp’s piece’s rather than contribute.
The photo below is intriguing to me as it has a kind of symmetry between the plastic and their shadows. It also adds to my point of how the plastic itself contributes to the dynamic of the piece.
Something which has really caught my interest is the aspect of 3D vs 2D. From any angle in the room, the composition of the projected shadow will always look the same as it is on a 2D surface however you could move around the rig and it will change as new pieces will now appear in front and others will fall to the back etc. I wonder if I could use the fact that a 3D structure changes with perspective.
I have now added another rig to the wall and used another light source to illuminate it. Using two rigs adds a lot to the atmosphere. In some of the photos you can see that I have used the same light to shine on both and this an interesting effect as the shadows stretch in the same direction and unifies the two pieces. On the other hand, using two lights also has an interesting effect. It almost makes them seem like two moving particles bouncing around.
At the beginning of the process I created a rig with more rounded pieces of plastic however I preferred the more angular shadows, so I created a third rig which is why there are photos in which both sets of shadows are angular. To conclude I really like how well using two rigs has worked and the results looks like a depiction of electrons or some subatomic particles as the tails suggest movement.
Obviously, the next step was to now use three different rigs. Although this experiment has evolved along a route which has slightly veered away from Knapp’s style, in that I now used multiple light sources and simpler filter arrangement, I like the possibilities from here. Using more than one torch means that I can make more complex designs. A problem I encountered was that it is hard to overlap shadows as when there are two lights pointing slightly towards each other some light from one torch shines on the shadow formed by the other and vice versa. This means that the shadows are very light and diluted so it works better when the shadows are diverging. My one criticism of Knapp was that he is repetitive and that each piece has a very similar palette and atmosphere, I will therefore have to manifest my criticism into my own work. I would like to add the dimension of time next and create changing pieces and actively control the atmosphere.
Adding time
Adding Time
THE CONTRAPTION
In this section, are my attempts at adding the dimension of time to the lightpaintings. What this meant practically is having a piece which changes. I had already thought about how, with a 3D structure, what you see is different from every angle so, by using this knowledge, I realised that you can change the piece by just changing the angle you are viewing it from. To do this I decided that the actual rig must rotate and ended up building this contraption.
This machine works by taking the motion of the motor and, firstly, changing its plane of rotation and, secondly, gearing it down so it moves much slower. I attached the rigs and angled a light source below it so that the shadows would be projected onto the wall.
I was really excited by this idea as it now opens up access to all the viewpoints and projects them in large.
EVALUATION/NEXT STEPS
Above are the videos of the machine working. In my opinion, it worked really well as each angle projects a different painting which keeps it dynamic and interesting. Furthermore, after watching the videos back I noticed how the general mood of the pieces changes as time goes on, this links back to what I learnt about colour theory and how different colours evoke different emotion. As the rig rotates it casts different shadows on the wall and at certain moments certain colours become more dominant which affects the mood, for example, there are times when the wall is more dominated by reds/oranges which creates a different atmosphere to when it is all blues/purples.
My next step is to harness this and to purposefully control and change the atmosphere. I will do this by carefully arranging the plastic and experiment with different colour combinations.
bottom of page