Works — H Spencer Young

Montage, 2021

Triptych of 3 volumetric luminograms with custom stainless steel hardware
Weight: 105 lbs total (35lbs per piece)
Ultraviolet ink on cast plexiglass
28h x 18.6w x 1.5d in. (42.2h x 71.1w x 3.8d cm) each

ED: 2 + 2AP

- Exhibited at Art Basel | Miami 2022

- AP2 exhibited in "The Patriot" at O’flahertys, New York

Montage, 2021 contemplates the increasing dematerialization and entropy of images and imagemaking. In an updated approach to the tradition of mark-making, fragmented blue and magenta forms are the result of movements in space with red, green and blue light sources, around an exposed camera sensor, from varying distances and positions.

The forms are the self-reflexive shadow contours of the insides and outsides of the camera body cast onto the sensor. The magenta is the result of the blue and red light mixing. Red, green and blue light was chosen due to being the building blocks of the additive color system of light.

The objects’ dimensions are that of standard digital photographs. They are rotated into portrait position in order for the viewer to more easily internalize them as objects as opposed to images. The thickness of the substrate was chosen to enhance each site‘s interaction with the work. The objects’ distances from the wall behind them determine the color saturation by affecting their opacity.

Tangentially the act of creating this work work was inspired by the infamous Double Slit Experiment, the basis for our current understanding of quantum physics. In this experiment, scientists directed light sources at surfaces with two thin, parallel vertical openings, in order to observe whether the resulting patterns on the wall behind the openings were scattered in the way of interfering waves, or individually landing photons. The primary purpose of this was, of course, to attempt to pin down light’s essence as either particle or wave. This led to the legendary, startling discovery that light is both, which changed everything.

Lastly, there is a multi-generational heritage in the world of real estate and construction to contend with, which is certainly evident in the objecthood of this lens-based work. Rotated back into landscape orientation, and arranged vertically, they can be seen as bricks. In portrait orientation: windows. Without space between them: a wall.

H SPENCER YOUNG STUDIO