Of Rhythm & Light

Uprise Art is proud to present Of Rhythm & Light, an exhibition of sculptural and mixed-media works by artists Katrine Hildebrandt-Hussey and Christina Watka at San Francisco’s Midway Gallery. Taking inspiration from the physics of waves in space, both artists have created new works that focus on sound and light through repetition and process. In terms of physics, sound possesses a vibrational energy that is reflected and absorbed by objects in space, while light waves travel through a vacuum and do not require a medium to move from their origin to their destination. These machinations inform two different outcomes: in the first, the vibrations are absorbed and the sound fades to silence or nothingness; in the second, the waves fade in potency as they travel, but never fully dissipate. These simple principles can describe the motion of swarms, flocks, cells, and constellations, in addition to sound and light, offering a diagrammatic sense of order to what might otherwise appear chaotic or unknowable.

Christina Watka’s custom installation nods to these systems of origin and destination in a floating, interconnected sculpture created using mica and brass connected with brass tubes and chain. Unified by these materials, her kinetic installation possesses the possibility of rhythmic and arrhythmic motions as its constituent parts move independently of one another, all the while amplifying an immersive sense of motion through transmuted and reflected light. These literal waves – light waves, the sequences of motion that permeate the installation, and the interchange between the two – lo-cate the observer as a point of origin. As bodies move about the space, moving and directing air currents, they affect the motion of the sculptures as well as absorbing or blocking passages of light.

In this body of work, Katrine Hildebrandt-Hussey reflects on the way light and sound move and engage within our environment, producing diagrammatic renderings that give visual representation to these fleeting, invisible forms. Her compositions evoke calming patterns such as waves, ripples, and echoes. For the past seven years, she has explored various volatile methods of drawing and mark-making with fire on paper, both controlled and precarious, her strategies mandate patience and methodical repetition, approaching ideas of ritual. Similar to mandalas, her works are designed to challenge the observer’s presence and awareness - as with Watka’s installations, the aim of Hildebrandt-Hussey’s works are to locate the observer and encourage reflection.

The exhibition will be augmented with sound activations by Andrew Halchak, who will perform music written in direct response to both artists’ work with four compositions organized by themes: Play, Repetition, Movement, and Alone. These compositions respond directly to ideas of repetition and process: through listening to a specific theme, the observer's ear becomes acclimated to the musical phrases until new expression comes through. The emergent property of Halchak’s music underlies the same principles of repetition that connect mandalas, flocks, swarms, and the other works in the exhibition. Though the melodies of the compositions are recurring, like Watka and Hildebrandt-Hussey’s works, they are never identical.

In conversation with one another, the artists’ works in Of Rhythm & Light offer a play of patterns that point to universal principles while remaining grounded in materiality. Both Watka and Hildebrandt-Hussey approach their materials as self-evident modes of representation - rather than obfuscating the origins of their media, their arrangements and repetitions reinforce the unpretentious nature of simple elements to create something altogether new.

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