Let there be light

Contemporary art is all about exploring diffirent types of medium, and a lot of artists are now using ‘light’ or ‘lighting effects’ as their main material to create illuminated installations for both outdoor and indoor spaces. As the name suggests, the light art or luminism is an applied art form in which light is the main medium of expression. It is an art form in which either a sculpture produces light or light is used to create a “sculpture” through the manipulation of light, colours, and shadows.

Recently, Italy’s renowned lighting brand iGuzzini collaborated with 6 leading Indian lighting designers to create a series of vibrant art installations that lit up the residence of the Italian Ambassador to India in New Delhi. The series called “Light First” featured the works of artists like Harmeet Singh Issar, Kanchan Puri, Manav Bhargava, Vibhor Sogani, Sarvdeep Basur, and Lyle and Linus Lopez. As the ‘art of light’ takes the center stage in the mainstream art world, we speak to a few renowned artists to get more insight.

Harmeet Singh Issar, who showcased an artwork called “WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). Or is it?” along with Sanjeev Nangia at this exhibit, feels that the onus of making light installations more mainstream falls on lighting designers. Speaking about his artwork, he says, “We have used all kinds of materials wood, metal sheets, mirror, paints, fabric, glass, plastic, and light, of course, to create WYSIATI at the Italian Embassy. It was a steel wire mesh based install using paint and black light projectors (UV light) with mirror sheets. Like any art, they can be installed almost everywhere. From public spaces to parks, homes, atriums, airports, metro stations, just about everywhere and can last forever just like a classic Caravaggio.”  

Light installations are a contemporary art form, where light acts as the one of the main media of expression. These installations often craft captivating and intriguing forms through the effective application of light, colours, and shadows. Artist Vibhor Sogani believes that due to their experimental and interactive nature, light installations have become extremely popular in contemporary design.

He says, “They explore a wide palette of materials in varied permutations and combinations, and hence offer immense possibilities. I have worked with a variety of materials in my past years, such as stainless steel, iron, aluminium, brass, copper, silver, wood, and I am constantly eyeing new ones as well. However, the complexity of crafting steel throws up a stiff challenge, because it requires the intelligent amalgamation of new technology as much as hand craftsmanship. The range of textures, finishes, and reflections that steel as a material offers, continues to draw me.  For some of my recent light installations – Fern, Casa, and Shell, the main medium of expression is steel. While each installation presents its own design arithmetic and personality, the underlying theme that connects them all is re-imagining simple forms of nature to create unique visual experiences. Light installations are a new trend. Design is steadily moving towards computation and automation; it is becoming interactive and interdisciplinary in its approach.

We are heading into a more experimental future and hopefully, it will lead to a rise in demand of light-based art installations. These installations can be temporary or permanent and can exist in a variety of spaces, whether indoors, in a large atrium, or outdoors in the landscape as well as at events such as festivals and exhibitions. Light art can be an interesting interaction of light within any architectural space and can lead to exciting outcomes with great potential and possibilities.” Whereas, light designers Lyle and Linus Lopez opine that any good installation should encourage people to think. Light installations use light and its properties to make an emotional connection with people, and that’s why light art is slowly gaining traction. The duo created an artwork titled “Four Seasons,” which was conceived to encourage people to think about the use of colour in the light. The artists say, “With the advent of LED and the possibility of many colours being made available, there is a blatant use of colour in our spaces and environments without any context or reference. The installation was constructed from luminous Lycra fabric draped over metallic rings.”