James Turrell

He works with light and space, concerned with the interconnections of visual perception. His inspiration came from where he lied in southern California. Bright sun, low horizons, open land and seascapes with big skies.

His work is simply about DEEP SKY AND EMPTY DESERTS and the feeling of loneliness which can be produced. He uses light to show its own presence and power.

He encourages viewers to see in ways that are 'haptic' (sense of touch) e.g feeling light with your eyes.

'In working with light, what is really important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought, to make the quality and sensation of light itself something really quite tactile. It has a quality seemingly intangible, yet it is physically felt. Often people reach out and try to touch it.'

Turrell to Julia Brown, Interview with James Turrell

He uses rectilinear forms from projections and subtle light atmospheres. The light can fill the space with warmth and radiance, as well as making the light occupy the space like a haze of colour.

In his early works, Turrell used fire, he was interested in in the method of creating a glow in space. Later on in his works, he used light from projectors. He was fascinated by the dust particles caching in the light.

In his studio he had no natural light source, he blocked off all the windows, everything was white, including the floors. It was good for exploring with light and space. His first use of projectors for Afrum-Proto were projected into corners and caused the light to produce spatial qualities. By using cross corner projections it creates an illusion that the light is 3D. The solidity of the light is dependent on where the viewer is and how close they are to the light. The closer you are to the light the more the two panels of light become apparent and less 3D.

http://vizproto.prism.asu.edu/classes/sp04/young_k/jamest2.jpg

At first Turrell experimented with standard light bulbs, but changed to using a more powerful source: quartz-halogen. This is what he used for Afrum-Proto. He used xenon projectors after as xenon bulbs were stronger and sharper. In his methods of working he uses drawing, sketching and experimentation with the light.

Turrell wanted the viewers to be able to interpret the light how they chose to. They can change the sense that the light is with the physical space. The location of the light can be used and moved around the room. In the cross corner projections templates were made to create orthogonal lines and forms. To create a solid rectangle or cube the template had to be distorted to show the perpendicular qualities of the light.