Vibrant Matter ~ Brilliant Fire

The latent potential that is inherent in matter, and its material vitality has played a part in giving shape and inspiring the vision of many artist’s imaginations. It is an agent that acts in a sense as a catalyst and collaborator, giving new possibilities to create artistic form, language, and meaning.

Early humans, who discovered that fire transforms clay into a hard durable and water-tight substance developed this knowledge into the complex artistic medium and science of ceramics, creating a new material whose potential has had an enormous impact on art, society and the sciences.

Paleolithic artists, medieval alchemists, 19th-century Enlightenment scientists and contemporary chemists have all pursued materials with which to create new pigments. These novel mediums have enlarged the potential of the art of painting, introducing colors that have shaped the vision of painters from Turner to Matisse: the alchemy of matter transforming the mind of the maker.

In her book Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, political theorist
Jane Bennett suggests the idea of “vital materialism”, and articulates how non-
human ‘things’ have agency that can affect and shape the outcomes of human endeavors.
Nobel prize-winning scientist Gerald Edelman proposes a novel theory of consciousness. He believes that our brain is not a fixed and unchangeable biological structure. In his book Bright Air Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind he
articulates the idea that the mind is nimble and shape-shifting; the brain literally
rewires itself in response to new experiences. It is shaped by the changing world around us.
The exhibition is a poetic homage to these thinkers and a reflection of how our physical interaction with materials shapes the visual language that we create and its meaning.