The SFMOMA Artists Gallery presents Katherine Westerhout and Tom Bolles in a exhibition that highlights each artist’s ability to manipulate atmospheric and implicit light. Tom Bolles’s longstanding interest in luminosity is reflected in his recent body of mixed-media paintings. A concept he first explored through neon sculpture, Bolles has created a glow in this body of work – without the aid of electricity – through careful juxtaposition of color and layering of material.
Katherine Westerhout’s photographs capture the psychological resonance of long-abandoned industrial, institutional, and ecclesiastical spaces. Westerhout works with the camera in four- to six-hour sessions to produce one or two carefully chosen color images. Using only available light, she creates large-scale works depicting uninhabited spaces that hold visual clues of past lives.
Though divergent in media and subject matter, when viewed together the two artist’s works hold a dialogue about the emotive quality of color and light and create sensory experiences that transcend established preconceptions of subject matter and media.