Untitled (orange), 2009

Heat-formed acrylic, with additional acrylic elements
© Helen Pashgian; courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London. Photo by Matthew Herrmann.

Best known as a member of the Light and Space movement that emerged in Southern California in the 1960s, Helen Pashgian challenges theories of perception through sculptures that explore the possibilities of light as both medium and subject. Color is fundamental to Pashgian’s practice, and she chooses each hue carefully on the basis of its ability to reflect or refract light in a particular way. In recent years, Pashgian has produced large-scale freestanding columns, such as Untitled (orange), made by heating acrylic sheets at high temperatures and wrapping them around wooden molds to generate a double elliptical form. Each column also encapsulates an additional acrylic element—described by the artist as “nebulous and ghostly”—at its center. The glowing columns invite close inspection and rely on the participation of viewers, whose experience of the light changes as they move around the works.