Laura Amphlett

Bio:

Laura Amphlett is an ASU alumnus who graduated with a BA in Sculpture.

Drawing has always been integral to Amphlett’s work, as a basis or starting point to any given idea. She often returns to various sketchbooks to pull ideas from seemingly fleeting thoughts on the small pages, and these drawings are converted to digital files that eventually translate through a machine (laser engraver, vinyl cutter, printer, etc.) to reinterpret or appropriate. This is a process of actualizing the subconscious, playing upon the sentiment of the Surrealist movement. Laura is interested in creating more substantial sculptural and/or dimensional pieces from these sketchbook drawings and collages, playing with a connection between the 2D and 3D world, where dimensionality can be real or implied. She uses found images, textures, and light in conjunction with personal drawings in smaller scale pieces, which translate well to her larger works. Amphlett often takes inspiration from her desert surroundings as well as other female artists like Ana Mendieta, Louise Bourgeois, and Kiki Smith. The use of layering, transparency, and symbolism suggest a mysterious yet personal narrative open to the viewer to investigate and interpret. An "answer" is not always what Laura is interested in, it is more of the question that informs her work. These questions often relate to identity, human interaction, and existentialism.

Interest in James Turrell

Light as material. In the past few years, I have used various forms of light in my work; natural, artificial, shadow, fluorescent material. For all artists who use actual light as material, light gains its content from its application but always retains a quality of pure abstraction or "pure information" that lends a particular, if indefinable, power. The visual power of light, suggests something significant just by its radiance. There is an innate and universal attraction to various forms of light that Turrell has harnessed. He is the master of using light (and space) to strike this sense of attraction within. When I experienced the installation Breathing Light at the LACMA a few years ago, it truly moved me. There was a certain feeling of peace being in that room, and I remember when looking off into the colored light wanting to travel deeper into it. Needless to say, the fifteen minute time limit was not nearly enough time for me.

Research Interests and Goals

Another question I have began to think about is, what the differences are between artificial and natural light (specifically in Turrell's work)? So far, I have only been able to experience his work that uses artificial light. Will traveling to this crater and experiencing the chambers in a small group, produce even more of that phenomenon or sense of contentedness that I had experienced in Breathing Light? What will the main differences be? Can this experience be replicated? Should it be? i.e. Phenomenology

Outcome

Bibliography

Ravenal, John B., et al. Artificial Light: New Light-Based Sculpture and Installation Art: Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. VCUarts Anderson Gallery, 2006.

Smith, D. W. (2003). Phenomenology. Retrieved March 22, 2005, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/.

Battaglia, A. (2016). Art That Puts You in a Man-Made Crater; Michael Heizer's 'Actual Size: Munich Rotary,' a storied work of land art. Wall Street Journal (Online), p. N/a.

Boettger, S. (2002). Earthworks : Art and the landscape of the sixties. Berkeley, Calif. ; London: University of California Press.

Prendergast, F., O'Sullivan, M., Williams, K., & Cooney, G. (2017). 'FACING THE SUN'. Archaeology Ireland, 31(4), 10.

Space, Sound, and Light: Toward a Sensory Experience of Ancient Monumental Architecture. (2013). American Journal of Archaeology, 117(2), 163-179.