“I wanted to find something that I could paint with to put light in the painting… What I like about this material - the microspheres - is that it changes with your perception. It is not reflective – reflective is one–two. A microsphere is a prism; it creates a triangle between the surface, the viewer, and the light source. It brings the viewer into the painting.”
A n ethereal vision of scintillating light, Mary Corse’s Untitled (White Inner Band with White Sides, Beveled) was executed in the momentous year of 2018 – the year of the artist’s first and long overdue museum survey held at the Whitney Museum of American Art. A pioneering manipulator of the visual and conceptual properties of light, Corse had begun producing her compelling body of the work since the 1960s, utilizing reflective and refractive materials in order to create works that change as the viewer moves around them. The present work, the expansive Untitled (White Inner Band with White Sides, Beveled), features glass microspheres that collects and reflect light, bearing witness to the shifts of light and atmosphere. Captivating and iconic, the work brilliantly demonstrates Corse’s technical expertise and scientific prowess as an important trailblazer of the Minimalist Aesthetic.
After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute, Corse relocated to a studio in Topanga Canyon having claimed that, away from the clamor of the art world, she was “left a lot to [her] own ideas” (Los Angeles t.mes s, 2017). She later transformed this studio into an artwork in itself. In 1968, Corse began her White Light series employing glass microspheres. Traditionally used to make roadway markings more visible in the dark, microspheres capture and manipulate the light and space, creating a transcendental experiential encounter for viewers that is grounded in vision and movement. Through works such as this, Corse not only investigates light in painting, she also explores its phenomenological experiences while maintaining “a dialogue with viewers about the metaphysical experience of being” (“Mary Corse: Seen and Unseen”, PACE, 2022, online). Over the decades, Corse refined her White Light paintings to ever more complex and sophisticated ends, working on increasingly larger formats to fashion sublime glowing white fields.
While Corse was one of the few women associated with the West Coast Light and Space Movement that included artists such as Larry Bell, Robert Irwin and James Turrell, Corse only rose to much-deserved prominence at the age of 72. Following her Whitney retrospective in 2018, which travelled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, recent notable institutional shows include “Mary Corse: Painting with Light” at the Long Museum in Shanghai, as well as a retrospective at the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul. A supreme embodiment of Corse’s singular artistic vision, Untitled (White Inner Band with White Sides, Beveled) is an exceptional example of Corse’s pioneering exploration into the possibilities of painting.
「我想找一些畫材，能把光放進畫中……我喜歡玻璃微粒這種材料，因為它會隨你的感知而變化。它並不是反射性的——反射只有兩步。而玻璃微粒則是一面稜鏡，它會在其表面、觀者和光源之間形成一個三角形。它會將觀者帶入繪畫。」
瑪 麗．闊思的《無題（白色內帶斜面白色邊）》捕捉了妙趣的光，繪成空靈飄渺的影像，此畫作於2018年，這年闊思在惠特尼美國藝術博物館舉行首個——也是姍姍來遲的個展，別具意義。闊思深諳光的視覺和概念特性，是善於操縱光的藝術先行者，早在1960年代，她已潛心探索如何利用反射和折射材料來作畫，使作品會隨著觀者移動而呈現變化，創作出引人入勝的繪畫。《無題（白色內帶斜面白色邊）》尺幅宏大，展現玻璃微粒如何收集並反射光，見證光與大氣的流轉。本作氣魄懾人，極具標誌性，將闊思的精湛技藝和科學才能表現無遺，足證她是極簡主義美學的重要開拓者。
闊思從喬伊納德藝術學院畢業後，遷至托班加峽谷工作，她曾表示，遠離藝術界的喧囂，讓她「專注傾聽她自己的想法」（《洛杉磯時報》，2017年）。她後來甚至將自己的工作室化為一件藝術品。1968年，闊思採用玻璃微粒，著手創作「白光」系列。玻璃微粒本來是用於道路標記上，使標記在昏暗中更為明顯，玻璃微粒能夠捕捉並操控光線與空間，為觀者創造一種基於視角和運動的超凡體驗。透過像這樣的作品，闊思探究的不僅是繪畫中的光，還有光所產生的現象學經驗，同時保持「與觀眾就存在的形而上學體驗進行對話」（〈瑪麗・闊思：看得見・看不見〉，《佩斯》，2022年，摘錄自網絡）。數十年來，闊思不斷完善她的白光畫作，力求複雜與精緻，作品的尺幅愈來愈大，以描繪出瑩瑩閃光而崇高華麗的白色領域。
闊思是為數不多參與西岸「光與空間」運動的女性，其他參加的藝術家還包括拉里・貝爾、羅伯特・歐文、詹姆斯・特瑞爾，但闊思年屆72歲才獲得其當之無愧的聲望。繼2018年惠特尼回顧展後，闊思的作品移師洛杉磯郡立藝術館展出，近期著名的機構展覽包括上海龍美術館的「瑪麗・闊思：以光作畫」展覽，以及首爾愛茉莉太平洋美術館的回顧展。《無題（白色內帶斜面白色邊）》完美體現闊思的獨特藝術視角，是藝術家探索並開拓繪畫可能性的絕佳例子。