Gisela Colon: Pods

Exhibition Dates: Jan. 18, 2019—Aug. 24, 2019

Reception Date: Friday, Feb. 8, 2019

This exhibition features the work of Gisela Colon, and American contemporary artist who has developed a unique vocabulary of organic minimalism, breathing life into reductive forms. Upon entering the gallery, one is surrounded by wall-hung biomorphic forms in multiple glowing hues that seem to transmute, interacting in new and unpredictable ways, with every variation in the room’s illumination and every shift of the viewer’s perspective. Forms within the forms also seem to move and alter. Shaped like amoebae and radiating like gems, the works evoke life both at its most primordial level and, simultaneously, at its most technically advanced and aesthetically refined. The way viewer’s interact with the Pods—by moving around and among them, by drawing closer and stepping back, by observing the differences wrought by variations in sunlight or levels of artificial lighting—is essential to the artist’s aims and the work’s meaning.

The Pods are created through a proprietary fabrication method of blow-molding and layering various acrylic materials, producing transformational objects that emanate light and color from within. The Slabs are 8-foot tall hybrid creations that amalgamate the use of acrylic technology with polished stainless steel, resulting in objects that hover between materiality and immateriality. The Monoliths are 12 and 15-foot tall vertical singular-form sculptures, engineered with aerospace technology, possessing no lines, corners, edges, or demarcations, conceived as pure form to denote clarity and aesthetic purity. The Portals are extremely streamlined 8-foot tall wall relief sculptures that exude disembodied light and morphing color, pulling the viewer towards the work and into a liminal / metaphysical space.

—Hilliard Art Museum