James Turrell

 

This research project was very overwhelming in the beginning. The first ever image I saw of James Turrell was him illuminated by light and I really wanted to know what he was all about. This project had a lot of trial and error for me unfortunately. I went through so many of his grouped works, I looked at his pictorial renditions of the more 3D examples, I just felt overwhelmed by my options. It wasn't until his work “Unseen blue 2002” that I felt any sense of guidance with what I was trying to convey. This work helped me solely because I had more variety with the light depicted which is what I was trying to get at in how viewers are experiencing something different each and every time with his work. He also is described as both a light artist and a musician because of his usage of optical illusions and projections/LEDs that help enhance the space or site specific art he is creating. I fell in love with the differing colors in his work but what stuck out to me the most is his extra attention to how viewers would feel in a space. This ties in to his Quaker faith but that strung in experience of meditation and occupying quiet space with others is what catapulted this discovery!. Despite the difficulty I had with certain aspects, I do feel like this project helped me not only learn, but feel recognized as an audience member. This is a similar feeling I had when we had seen work by Dan Graham describing his audience and how they were seeing him both in body language and eye movement. I appreciate artists who look at art as a relationship between audience and subject rather than a one-sided action of viewing.

James Turrell Presentation