In a way, light unites the spiritual world and the ephemeral, physical world. People frequently talk about spiritual experiences using the vocabulary of light: Saul on the road to Damascus, near-death experiences, samadhi or the light-filled void of Buddhist enlightenment.
Drake went through my exhibition. I did meet him in Los Angeles, and he was in the spaces that I did do there, and has some images from that.
The people in L.A. do orient themselves to light. I used to call it 'Tan Fascist Culture.' Everyone there is tanned, wears dark sunglasses, looks like a movie star even when they're not.
One of the tenets in Quaker meditation is that you 'go inside to greet the light.' I am interested in this light that's inside greeting the light that's outside.
I have high expectations of my audience, and in general, I would say they've met that.
If you think about art, if you look at Rembrandt and Vermeer and Caravaggio, if you look at Turner and Constable and all the Impressionists and the Hudson River School, there's a tradition of light in art, especially painting.
I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer.
Usually we are illuminating things instead of looking at the light itself. But I like this quality of the light being the revelation.
This wonderful elixir of light is the thing that actually connects the immaterial with the material - that connects the cosmic to the plain everyday existence that we try to live in.
I started out with projected-light works and working indoors, but I'd prepare the walls - by sanding, etcetera - the way you'd prepare a canvas for painting.
I like to work with it so that you feel it physically, so you feel the presence of light inhabiting a space. My desire is to set up a situation to which I take you and let you see. It becomes your experience.
The works of previous artists have come from their own experiences or insights but haven't given the experience itself. They had set themselves up as a sort of interpreter to the layman... Our interest is in a form where you realize that the media are just perception.
Nowhere in the job description of an artist is the requirement that I must validate your taste.
There is an idea, first of all, of vision fully formed with the eyes closed. Of course the vision we have in a lucid dream often has greater lucidity and clarity than vision with the eyes open.
It's really terrific to see Pittsburgh recognize the Mattress Factory.
Generally, we use light to illuminate other things. I like the thingness, the materiality of light itself. So it feels like it's occupying the space, making a plane, being something that was there, not just passing through. Because light is just passing through. I make these spaces that seem to arrest it for our perception.
I haven't been that great at attending my own openings. Still, I'm learning to enjoy this a lot more than I used to.
One way to understand light in the ocean of air is by flying it. Life in the air is an extension of perceiving.
I am interested in the physicality of light itself.
It is only when light is reduced that the pupil opens and feeling goes out of the eyes like touch.
