FEBRUARY 8 - APRIL 7, 2018

A collection of 13 unique light sculptures transforms the New Gallery into a small cityscape of illuminated towers. The Light Stacks series explores the play of light against a wide range of materials such as brass, polished aluminum, white oak, yellow pine, concrete, painted MDF and more. Each slender assemblage of thin and thick rings presents a different expression of the object exploring the emotional resonance between materials and light.

The Light Stacks are descendants of Gagnon's earlier Acrylic Lamps from 2001, an homage to office buildings at night with their half occupied floors of dark and light in varied tones of fluorescent illumination. The Light Stack series indulges this interest in subtle light shifts but ultimately is driven by a desire to create interior monuments capable of projecting an emotional context onto a space. For the past year his studio has been stacking and re-stacking typical building materials to collect unforeseen patterns of diffusion, reflection, color and scale. For the show Material Relations, Gagnon assembled thirteen Light Stacks to play off one another in a conversation between perceived material biases and the emotional qualities of light in a space.

Lights range in height from 18 inches up to 74 inches. Each stack is illuminated by a custom made LED stick. Some stacks are one of a kind pieces while others have been made available in small limited editions.

After studying architecture at Cornell University, Matt Gagnon worked for Frank Gehry and Gaetano Pesce before establishing his eponymous multidisciplinary studio in Los Angeles in 2002. Widely known for its wooden Knit and Squeeze Series of structures, the studio's work is diverse in scale and purpose, from architecture and public art installations to limited edition art objects for public and private clients.