Elbowing 2003

Ray Howlett made "Elbowing" out of glass, and the way light moves through it is just mesmerizing. It’s all hard edges, but it has this way of creating soft color gradients. Imagine Howlett in the studio, figuring out the physics, chemistry, and mathematics, working with high temperatures and pressures. You have to know glass to manipulate it, coaxing it into these precise forms. And then he’s got this color thing going on! The glass takes on these iridescent qualities, as though glowing from within. The way Howlett coaxes light and color to come forward is like a dance. The way the light bends through the glass and sprays color on the wall reminds me of the Light and Space artists from the sixties, like Robert Irwin or James Turrell. Artists are always thinking about what others have done, building on the past, and dreaming up new ways of working. This piece, like all good art, is not just an object but an idea about space, light, and color.