Tatyana Murray and Sandra Kantanen
“Lustre”
New York, 505 West 24th Street
Tatyana Murray's layered glass works immerse the viewer in an ethereal construction of light, exploring the fragility of nature and the dissonance between man-made and natural. In her most recent "Tree of Light" series, Murray creates floating images through the physically laborious process of drilling and etching on each transparent sheet of glass, which are then stacked one upon the other. Murray's mark making is revealed only through the refraction of LED light, elevating the industrial materials to a spiritual meditation. It is only through the light itself that the floating image reveals itself, illuminating each tree by rendering it into a transcendental state.
Tatyana Murray Summer A 2019 Refracted light, glass, plexiglass, motion programmed LED 26 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 4 in
Sandra Kantanen's images are aesthetic excursions into a world of illusion oscillating between painting and photography. Inspired by the history of Chinese landscape painting, Kantanen uses a digital paintbrush to record and layer images. Photographs of forests, meadows of flowers, and lakes are manipulated through a digital process in which she stretches the pixels to appear as if dripping in paint. Ultimately, the physical sites she photographs serve as the foundation of the work to further explore reality rooted in photography as a medium. Embellished with light and color, the final images reflect conjured visions of a fantastical landscape, detached from a distinct time or location to investigate the fragility of our natural world in its current state.
The driving principle of light lies at the essence of the work and photography itself. While Murray's layers are physically assembled and Kantanen's are digitally rendered, both artists draw with light, examining a natural landscape that is idealistic and romantic yet simultaneously mysterious and fragile.
