SOLAR WING

Description by the artist

When I was asked to design a piece for the Federal Courthouse in San Jose, I chose to work with the exterior sunshade structure that connects the two buildings.  I had been working with glass prisms and lenses, and I thought the exterior space offered the best site for a piece using these light altering materials.  The piece, "Solar Wing", is a formation of 620 tempered glass prisms mounted in 186 anodized turquoise aluminum fins, which are attached to the sunshade.  The fins are mounted perpendicular to the building and form a large graphic wing pattern. The prisms project color patterns onto the shaded surface of the building beneath the sunshade.  The spectra sweet across the outer face of the courthouse and project into the corridors and offices along the building.  The patterns vary with the position of the sun during the day and the angle of the sun at different times of the year.

I wanted to move away from the idea of art as a precious object, with this piece, the "art" is really in the constantly changing play of light on the building and walkways.  It was impossible to predict exactly what would happen once the piece was installed.  As it turns out, the light patterns on the exterior of the building are quite different than those that project into the more intimate interior spaces.  The projections in the corridors and offices are even bolder and the colors are more intense than the exterior projections, perhaps because the viewer can be closer to or bathed in the colored light.

"Solar Wing" is an experiential piece; I encourage you to visit it on a sunny day.