Rebecca Baumann

Rebecca Baumann’s Continuity Field accentuates the architecture of 1301SW via a site-specific installation of light, colour and form, a gesture that continues the Peth-based artist’s investigation of temporality and permanence. Both immersive and ephemeral, this intervention continues Baumann’s desire to affect viewers through experiential and emotive gestures.

In Continuity Field, Baumann’s customary dichroic film adopts a three-dimensional form. Running the length of the walls of 1301SW’s two-gallery space, a line of light absorbing and emitting objects reflect onto one another and into the larger space. This dance with light and space is elusive, responding to the viewer’s position in context to the hundreds of colour-field forms which change depending on the time of day, with the assistance of the gallery’s saw-tooth skylights.

Shaped by an interest in psychology, sociology, and art history, this reference to a “line” brings to mind the Land Art of Richard Long or perhaps works by Pierre Manzoni, but it is the American artist Roni Horn who Baumann references. Horn’s You are the Weather, a series of one hundred portraits of a young woman sat within an Icelandic thermal spring, shows how changeable we are as human beings alongside the volatility of weather. Subtle in the changes from one face to another, this reference for Baumann becomes obvious when thinking of the way her installation changes with the aforementioned outside atmospheric conditions and the viewer’s position. This controlled and exploratory use of light, colour and form offers a totally immersive experience, activating the viewer’s emotions in fleeting and unexpected ways.