Lightsculpt - Michael Haylen

The Gallery Lane Cove series is an extension of the work previously exhibited at Meyer Gallery Sydney in 2010 and Syndicate at Danks Street in 2012.
The story is about the energy, how it is generated, transferred and transformed.

I am an image artist living adjacent to Lane Cove River, my sense of place. Current work and ongoing interest is in creating luminous forms from the surface of the River and exploring emerging and visceral themes.

The series begins by capturing the act of impact penetrating surface water, producing and transferring energy as waves evolve. The act of impact transforms imagery into swirl and splatter forms eventually receding back to the equilibrium of the still meniscus from which light illusions of figure and amorphous form again prevail.

What I essentially do is shoot into the sun’s beam of reflected white light. Often shooting with dark glasses from cliffs with a telephoto lens into the mirror like radiance of the sun bouncing back from the surface.

I capture silver-blue halos of sun and cloud radiating off the River at the interface between the water realm and the air, creating illusions of form and figure.
Different times of day and year produce different results such as silver blue cloudy days to sunny day halos
of intense natural colour.

I refer to my technique as ‘Lightsculpting’.
Forms are created from gradations of light and shade like carving from the block of an image.

Emerging through the meniscus between realms,
bodies come into sight both by becoming form and being taken apart. Images evolve by shrouding and peeling-open face and figure to reveal the visceral within (Series 2). The idea of journey as not always something pretty but going somewhere, is evident as forms evolve.

What I am really doing is revisiting Man’s first mirror, the meniscus of still water.
It’s a world of our imaginings, dancing on the rim of the physical.The luminous meniscus is a floating world of potential, an ambiguous space.The shifting uncertainty of form presents a sense of instability, evoking amorphous,lyrical and visceral responses. It is sometimes more about what goes missing in the shadows.

The imagery aesthetic is in ideation and punctum.
The work celebrates form and invites a sense of journey.
Imagery asks questions by inviting a range of responses
intended to still the viewer long enough to look twice.

My experience is grounded in science and sculpture
and there is a sense of seeing the art and science in the energy of natural form.

The work illustrates ‘the art of science’ as a totally different reality construct and we are now in a position
to prove this scientifically.

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The Printed Product:
1 to 2 metre Archival Pigment Prints.
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http:/www.michaelhaylen.com/ (under reconstruction)
Online Gallery
http://www.nebuliarts.com/
michaelhaylen@hotmail.com
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