Turbulent Light

2018

Plywood, pine, assorted nuts, bolts, and washers, acrylic paint, batteries, electrical wire, switch.

40.0 cm x 50.0 cm x 7.0cm 

Turbulent Light (2018) is a contemporary technological take on Vincent van Gogh’s famous Starry Night (1889), a painting remembered for its masterfully painted flickering of light. Impressionists like van Gogh represented light in a new way that evoked the visual nature of turbulent flow - the swirling of matter into smaller eddies. This artwork is conceptually linked to Coldrey’s previous Turbulent Night (2018), alternatively using heat and daylight, melting together gases and solar flares. 

Turbulent Light makes the artistic movements of the impressionist’s literal and scientific, drawing on a motion and pulley system to make the artwork physically operative. The mechanical painting is interactive and spins into its functionless splendour with the hold of a button. The swirling brush strokes in yellow, orange and red blend into an array of light, creating a sense of light and mechanical wonder. The artwork is playful and child-like, imbuing a sense of wonder in the surfaces beneath the paint. In motion, the painting emits warmth and energy, conjuring images of a burning and flickering sun.