GMAC will open its third exhibition, Hap Tivey: Perception is the Medium, on September 27, 2024. The exhibition showcases two new works by the artist, commissioned for the occasion of the show. The two artworks on view, Helios III, 2023 and Sunset Enso, 2024, are from different bodies of work. The pieces are however unified in their use of composed light sequences to materialize presence in the viewer, while simultaneously dissolving separation between the viewer and the object.

Helios is the artist’s most recent series, which consists of moving image wall works, each with a unique sequence of shifting light that varies in duration, intensity, and value. The changes in color and light are carefully composed by the artist, occurring in the background and within the circle, or glowing sun shape, at the center of the work. The pieces are each on a loop that lasts approximately twelve minutes, consciously timed for perceptual impact. The perception of highly saturated and shifting hues converge for the viewer to experience the sensation of being identical to their perceptual field.

Tivey’s Enso series is an immersive Ganzfeld experience that the artist has been reproducing in various forms and installations since 1972. In Sunset Enso, an individual viewer climbs into the immersion environment and either stands or sits to experience color and light shifts that appear to expand infinitely. Here the viewer enters a space with color where there is no separation between the viewer and the work, rather the viewer begins to gradually feel that they are a part of the color and space. The series has the effect of slowing time down and elicits feelings such as a peaceful coexistence between mind and body to more cognitive responses like a kinesthetic experience of visual energy.

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Left: Sunset Enso, 2024 Right: Helios, 2023