A sculptor and professor of ceramics based out of Denton Texas, Colby Parsons’ work combines sculpture with the new media field of projection. In addition to running the ceramics program at Texas Woman’s University, Parsons has exhibited at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in California, The International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark, the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, and in Dallas at the Craighead Green Gallery, the Pawn Gallery, and 500X. He also created a site-specific installation for the 2010 Taiwanese Ceramic Biennial at the Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum.
Above image: From Landscape #1 in Colby Parsons’ Materiality of Light series.
The video we’re showcasing today is Landscape #1 from Parsons’ series Materiality of Light. The artist states of the series:
This group of work represents an exploration of the distortion and textural qualities of video projection in intersection with clay — particularly clay forms with a strong sense of materiality. The forms are developed around the limiting factor that each piece will be paired with a single data projector, and therefore the projection area must be shaped so that light can reach it from a single point. The forms are also limited by the intention to have the projection hit the surface at different angles, causing distortions to the pixel grid. I consider the pattern of pixels inherent to the projection process to be analogous to a kind of “materiality”, in the sense that any medium has fundamental qualities that can either be hidden (considered as flaws), or celebrated and exploited as a kind of aesthetic of authenticity.
The video is just one minute long, but we could watch it on a loop until the weekend.
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