James Turrell was born
in Los Angeles in 1943. His undergraduate studies at Pomona College
focused on psychology and mathematics; only later, in graduate school,
did he pursue art. He received an MFA in art from the Claremont
Graduate School in Claremont, California. Turrell’s work involves
explorations in light and space that speak to viewers without words,
impacting the eye, body, and mind with the force of a
spiritual
awakening. “I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously
plumbed with seeing,” says the artist, “like the wordless
thought that comes from looking in a fire.” Informed by his
studies in perceptual psychology and optical
illusions,
Turrell’s work allows us to see ourselves “seeing.”
Whether harnessing the light at sunset or transforming the glow
of a television set into a fluctuating portal, Turrell’s art
places viewers in a realm of pure experience. Situated near the
Grand Canyon and Arizona’s Painted Desert is Roden Crater,
an extinct volcano the artist has been transforming into a celestial
observatory for the past thirty years. Working with cosmological
phenomena that have interested man since the dawn of civilization
and have prompted responses such as Stonehenge and the Mayan calendar,
Turrell’s crater brings the heavens down to earth, linking
the actions of people with the movements of planets and distant
galaxies. His fascination with the phenomena of light is ultimately
connected to a very personal, inward search for mankind’s place
in the universe. Influenced by his Quaker faith, which he characterizes
as having a “straightforward, strict presentation of the sublime,”
Turrell’s art prompts greater self-awareness through a similar
discipline of silent contemplation, patience, and meditation. His
ethereal
installations enlist the common properties of light to
communicate feelings of transcendence and the Divine. The recipient
of several prestigious awards such as Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships,
Turrell lives in Arizona.
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