Source: kcrw.com
Many people tend to parse the arts from science and technology, associating the former with the past and tradition and the latter with the future and innovation. This is not the best way to think of these two disciplines, however; in fact, one could group art and science into the same discipline, as many institutions and programs are trying to do. T. Kelly Mason has proven this fact. As an aspiring artist, Mason worked and trained as an electrician, and worked with various materials and pieces of technology, including the type of lightboxes used for commerical advertising. Mason repurposed these lightboxes almost as a canvas for his art, adding to it various cut-out shapes from acrylic gels to achieve “painterly effects”. The main concept driving the design of each lightbox revolves around representation of spaces, from artists’ studios to views of the earth from the International Space Station. For Mason, researching the “visual history” of a location is just as large a part of his artistic process as is the actual assemblage of the work itself.
To learn more about Mason and see some of his work, check out this podcast from KCRW and its accompanying article. Enjoy the weekend!