Chris Wood
Waves of water and light.
“Light and water are a constant source of surprise and delight for me,” says artist Chris Wood, who has new works at two locations in Sharjah celebrating the interplay of water and light. Her exhibition, Liquid Light, at Maraya Art Centre opened in February; it coincided with the unveiling of a permanent sculpture, Flutter, on Al Noor Island.
Flutter is constructed from a disk of white Corian (a durable material), two metres in diameter. Small panels of glass protrude from each side, harnessing natural light to produce geometric shadows and patterns that change throughout the day. In Flutter, Wood uses dichroic glass—glass covered with a colourless optical coating that reflects particular wavelengths of light. The remaining wavelengths transmit through the glass, producing rainbow-coloured shadows and projections. The material, developed by NASA in the 1960s, has been a staple of Wood’s practice since she was a student at the Royal College of Art in London.
The British artist first visited Sharjah in 2015. “I stayed in a hotel with a view across the lagoon. I’d watch the changing light on the water and the fountains dance. I felt a real connection, not only to the waterways, but to the city itself and the abundant borrowed light.” Flutter fuses her lifelong interest in light with the fluidity and reflection of water.
“Whilst studying furniture design, my first project was to design a light fitting, and this shaped my journey of artistic discovery. I found I could work directly with light, I just needed to find the physical materials that would enable me to transform, order and control it. I began with glass, a material that is visually all about light. Exploring water came later. Optically, water is a liquid form of glass, however unlike glass, water has movement and can adopt the form of its container.”
Liquid Light, at Maraya Art Centre until August, is a new body of work that examines the symbiotic relationship between water and light. The artworks—minimal arrangements of dichroic, and vessels filled with water that play with shadow—are brought to life by shifting sunlight in the gallery space. “Water and light are necessities, yet how we relate to them varies greatly,” Wood says. Her artworks deconstruct them so that we can not only see them but feel their presence. —AS
Photo courtesy of Chris Wood
