• OLAFUR ELIASSON
  • Olafur Eliasson’s practice centers around the experience of human perception, investigating the interplay of color and light as primary actors upon our sense of vision. Color is perceived by the human eye and mind, but it is also embodied by materials, whether ephemeral or concrete. Eliasson’s works have thus at times taken the form of projected light or water vapor, while at other times they are constructed using tactile materials like glass, paint, and ink. Eliasson has said “the color of light and the colors in light have a long shared history with the quality of lived life,” recognizing that color is both an integral part of all objects and phenomena we experience, and also a distinct category of beauty that we discern and value, providing pleasure in its own right. 
     
    Experimentation is a critical catalyst in Eliasson’s work, and increasingly he has explored the element of chance in how the works are created or experienced. Works appear to change when seen at different angles or from different viewpoints, or transformation is revealed through movement as time elapses. There is a balance in these works between the unpredictability of chance that the artist welcomes into the creation process and the control he exerts over the work using various techniques and processes to adjust the final outcome.
  • Olafur Eliasson side view of sculpture

    A thought about now, in three changing colours

    Three glass spheres, arranged in a row on a steel shelf, change in appearance as the viewer approaches. Each sphere appears to be pink, yellow, or blue, or a combination of these colors as the tone shifts gradually but constantly depending on the angle of view, slipping between these possibilities in response to the viewer’s slightest movement. To create this effect, the back third of each sphere is coated with a smooth gradient that transitions from one color, to a second color, to a third color. The curved glass acts like a lens, causing the paint to swell and fill the sphere with a blend of tones depending on the angle at which it is viewed. The work is part of a larger groups of artworks with glass spheres which relate to Eliasson’s abiding interest in optics; for a decade Eliasson has experimented with how these optical devices encourage exploration, play, and embodied engagement. 
  • Olafur detail of painting

    Hot spotting

    The amorphous pigment at the centre of this painting is the result of a pool of ink and water being applied to the untreated canvas and left to spread out and saturate the material over time. The liquid expands in unpredictable ways, leaving a nebulous pattern that registers the structure of the fabric and the viscosity of the liquid. Another layer is added once the previous one has dried to create a brilliant blot that reflects the unfolding of time. Rather than being sculpted by the artist’s decisions and the movements of his hand, the painting reflects the agency of chance and the time it took for the work to unfold. However, the artist is not merely a passive observer, rather he intervenes subtly with heat or air currents to encourage the natural movement of the materials. This creates a collaboration between the viscosity of the medium, the roughness of the support, the judgement of the artist, and the atmospheric and climatic conditions of the studio environment. 
  • Eliasson sculpture

    Slow-spinning blind spot

    Eliasson has a long-standing interest in polarizing filters, which change the way transparent glass reflects and refracts light, producing unexpected color effects. This work is a simple construction of three circles: a circle of mirror mounted flat to the wall, with a concentric circle demarcated at the center, and a PET disc hanging freely, which is attached to a motor that causes it to spin slowly. The ever-changing combinations of materials creates a constant metamorphosis; the circles’ varying reflective, transparent, and refractive properties moving past one another as one element spins. The resulting colors and shapes emerge and recede in ways that can seem unexpected; as the artist himself puts it, the work offers “the possibility of experiencing something that you are certain is not there.” 
  • Eliasson watercolor detail

    Watercolors

    In his watercolor paintings, Olafur Eliasson continues his investigation of color phenomena. For over 15 years, the artist has used the qualities of transparency and layering in inherent to the medium of watercolor in various ways, often returning to motifs of circles and ellipses to suggest spatial bodies, natural light or vision phenomena, or movement through time and space. In the watercolors, circles and ellipses act as “figures” among monochromatic “fields” which are made by masking out shapes on the page when applying thin washes of paint to the entire sheet of paper, balancing aspects of precise control with more experimental color mixing. Where watercolor overlaps watercolor, previous layers shine through and mix with subsequent layers, giving rise to a large variation in hues beyond those actually applied to the paper.