Glass artist Keiko Mukaide has created a site-specific installation at the Tate St Ives in Cornwall in response to the exquisite light and atmosphere of the Cornish landscape which has inspired artists for nearly 200 years.

In Light of the North, her new commission for the 55 foot-long, sea-facing showcase at Tate St Ives, she has created an installation of brilliant coloured light using shards of dichroic glass, centrally lit by a beehive lighthouse lens.

Reminiscent of Constructivist sculptor’s Naum Gabo's translucent Perspex spirals or painter Wilhelmina Barns-Grahams studies of sparkling glacial forms made in the mid-twentieth century, Keiko uses the translucent and prismatic properties of glass as a metaphor for the unseen forces of nature, which sustain the forms and structures we physically encounter.

Keiko, who was born in Japan, trained at Edinburgh College of Art and lives and works in Fife.  

A publication accompanies this exhibition with an essay by Roanne Dods, director of the Jerwood Foundation

The exhibition is on at the Tate St Ives until 7 May 2006 and is open daily from 10am to 5.30pm, last admission 5pm.  Admission £5.50; £2.75 concessions; free to Tate Members, under 18s and over 60s.

Print Discuss