Coachella 'Reflects' Artist Phillip K. Smith's Work

"Reflection Field" is Coachella Valley artist's largest installation

Site Staff Arts & Entertainment

 

Festivalgoers at Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival will have the added treat of seeing the latest and largest light installation from Coachella Valley artist Phillip K. Smith, III.

Working in color, light, space, and form, Smith creates deceptively simple objects of contemplation, transformation, and interaction.

His newest project “Reflection Field” continues to explore ideas of color theory, optics, perception, scale, and technology.

“Reflection  Field” is a monumental installation that consists of five freestanding volumes of light and mirror scaled as large as 18 feet high and 17 feet wide. In this installation the series of objects are arranged to span a diameter of 100 feet.

By day, the monolithic mirrored volumes of “Reflection Field” are prisms of earth and sky, wrapped by the surrounding environment.

By night, they become expansive fields of color that blend and layer through echoes of reflection. Spaces become simultaneously infinite and finite, while hues push and pull, saturating and dissolving the surroundings and periphery into pure color.

Smith rose to international acclaim last year with his project “Lucid Stead”, which appeared on the December cover of Palm Springs Life.

The 70-year-old homesteader shack became a desert treasure with mirror, LED lighting, and custom electronics to create a 24-hour experience in the isolation of Joshua Tree.

Hundreds of people made the arduous trek to see the installation and, as word spread, “Lucid Stead” quickly became an international phenomenon receiving global recognition both online and in print media.

Architect Magazine listed it as one of  the "Very Best Projects of 2013" and the Los Angeles Times named Smith as one of the three "Faces to Watch 2014 in Art" alongside the Hammer Museum's senior curator, Ann Ellegood, and multiple Venice Biennale participant, artist Gabriel Kuri.

As a result of "Lucid Stead", Goldenvoice found interest in Smith's work to bring it to Coachella.

“Reflection Field” combines the concepts of “Lucid Stead”, with the paced, color merging of his “Lightworks” series and his recent exhibition at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, Calif.

For more information, visit www.ReflectionField.com or www.royaleprojects.com

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