Gisela Colón was profoundly influenced by first-generation Light and Space artists such as De Wain Valentine and Helen Pashgian. Colón makes sculptures that interact not only with light, viewers, and their immediate environment, but also with what she calls “the energy of the earth, of the planet.… One of the most important features [of] my work is that it incorporates concepts of time, gravity, and forces of nature. So it’s meant to be fluctuating, like solid, liquid, and gas.” Untitled (Monolith Silver) is the result of intense labor. Colón determined the shape of the form using mathematical measurements, then cast it in carbon fiber, sanded it, and finished it with lacquer paint. She also added small, gem-shaped particles to the paint so that prismatic shifts are created when light interacts with the sculpture’s surface. Finally Colón buffed the work until, in her words, it was “polished to perfection. Thus the ultimate experience is one of surface liquidity and reflection, as well as prismatic refraction.”
Exhibition label: Light, Space, Surface: Works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2021, Carol S. Eliel.
