Ellery Harkness

Light Explorations

January 28 - February 4, 2020

Edwards Art Building | Brunswick, ME

The Exhibition Light Explorations is the result of a deep dive into thinking about color and light as scientific tools for an artist. The paintings started from the point where science and creativity converge. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang explains how antithetical forces can actually be interconnected and reliant on one another. Though at first glance science and creativity may seem like analytical forces, they have much more overlap than expected. I became interested in the science of light when I was observing the way light reflected off of a shiny surface one afternoon and it occurred to me how elusive light is. You don’t always notice it but it can drastically change how we perceive the world and further how the narrative of a visual piece is interpreted. And yet, light is merely just a wavelength. The artist, Ellery Harkness further explored the medium of painting in this project after taking Painting I last semester. The permanence of paint as a medium serves as a contrast to the fleeting nature of light. The series focuses on the study of light through the interactions it has with the human body. The paintings tell the story of light through the non-naturalistic colors used. The light and space the subjects inhabit are treated with just as much importance as the subjects themselves. The abstracted backgrounds seek to highlight and make visible light, which too often slips under our radar.