Untitled (orange)

Helen Pashgian is best known as a member of the Light and Space movement that emerged in Southern California in the 1960s. Over a five-decade career, she has challenged various theories of perception, producing sculptures that explore the possibilities of light as both medium and subject and creating immersive optical experiences that are unique to each viewer. Color is fundamental to Pashgian’s practice, and she chooses each hue carefully on the basis of its ability to reflect or refract light in a particular way. In recent years, Pashgian has produced large-scale free- standing columns, such as Untitled (orange). These she makes
by heating acrylic sheets at high temperatures before wrapping the softened material around wood molds to generate, in cross section, a double elliptical form. Each column also encapsulates an additional acrylic element—described by the artist as “nebulous and ghostly”—at its center. The glowing columns invite close inspection and rely on the participation of viewers, whose experi- ence of the light changes as they move. In the artist’s words,
“The double elliptical shape is continually mysterious because as you move around it whatever you see inside distorts, dissolves, and reappears.”