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Soo Sunny Park's Pretty Patchwork of Light at Rice Gallery
Meredith Deliso
Meredith Deliso | April 24, 2013 | 9:00am
Soo Sunny Park's installation at Rice Gallery is unapologetically pretty. It's a glistening, iridescent canopy of shimmering pinks, purples, blues, greens and yellows that resemble anything from a fish's scales to a spider's web wet with raindrops.
Despite the apt comparisons, this creation is anything but organic. "Unwoven Light" is composed entirely of chain-link fence and coated Plexiglas that Park has exhaustingly shaped and welded together to create a network of abstract, bulbous shapes suspended from the ceiling. In fact, it took the artist and her assistants two weeks to make just one distinct unit -- specifically, seven hours of welding to brace the fencing, 100 hours of tying the wire that holds each Plexiglas piece in place, and still more time cutting the Plexiglas shapes to fit into the chain-link cells. In all, there are 37 such units -- 17 newly created for the installation and 20 recycled from a past work -- that create patches of light throughout the gallery from floor to ceiling.
However laborious its creation, "Unwoven Light" seems effortless, with light doing most of the work. Every step brings you a new combination of colors that reflect off the Plexiglas and bleed onto the walls and even the floor. There's no set path to follow, either, giving you the freedom to wander underneath and around the units in your own trance. There can be much to consider as you explore the work -- about the properties of light and color, imposed boundaries and our perception of space -- but it also is a pleasant experience that is, simply, joyful. "Soo Sunny Park: Unwoven Light" at Rice Gallery, 6100 Main Street, runs now through August 30. For more information, call 713-348-6169 or visit www.ricegallery.org.
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