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January 27 to March 3, 2007
Paola Cabal: Luminaries
Three large windows make up the east wall of Western Exhibitions’ rear gallery (called the Drawing Room). On a typical day in the winter, we get about one hour worth of direct sunlight coursing through these windows, so we asked installation artist Paola Cabal to capture these sunrays to lighten our mood through the dark hibernation months. Paola completed her work on December for an installation that will run through March 3.
Paola calls her pieces ‘interventions’: The work is created on-site and takes its cues from elements inherent to said space. She ‘intervenes’ into the space in alternately obvious and subtle ways, yet maintaining the unique properties of the site. The play of both sunlight and street-light on, and through, built structures constitutes the focus of many of her interventions as she ‘fixes’ sunlight to the floors and walls of her sites by spray painting the shadow’s cast patterns. The result is what is illuminated when light falls in a built space, and then what remains after that light fades. Cabal says, “…it is static work, work that exists in space and evokes time, which has the power to reveal aspects of our constantly shifting lived experience.”
During the opening reception, Gisela Insuaste and Sumakshi Singh will participate in a one-time performance, interacting with the painted sunlight installation by Paola Cabal. Sitting still or moving within the altered space, Insuaste and Singh will be similarly modified to reflect a particular time and sunlight condition: from alterations to their bodies to modifications to their clothing, Insuaste and Singh will appear to reflect lighting conditions not necessarily present when viewers experience the piece.
photos by David Ettinger
Paola Cabal is the 2006 recipient of the Individual Artist Award: Emerging Artist from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Her interventions have been seen locally at Northern Illinois University Chicago gallery, Gallery 312, Polvo and the Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art. In an on-going, multi-site piece “Points of Passage” sponsored by Gallery 400, she preserves sunlight patterns in painted reverse shadows as they are reflected onto public spaces throughout the city of Chicago. Her work has been included in shows in Bogota, Colombia, Pittsburgh, Ft. Lauderdale and South Carolina. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003 and lives and works in Chicago.
ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST