Surreal Gardens - Projections of the Surreal (Xilitla)
Projects
Year: 2012
Edition: Unique
Technique: Projection
Framed: No
FREE SHIPPING
We provide free worldwide and fully insured delivery by professional carriers.
30 DAY RETURNS
Try artworks at home with our 30-day return and money back guarantee.
SECURITY
All payments on IdeelArt are fully secured.
AUTHENTICITY
All artworks on IdeelArt are original, signed, delivered directly from the artist's studio, and come with a certificate of authenticity."The Surreal Gardens – Projections of the Surreal" is a site-specific light and color intervention created by Norwegian artist Anne Katrine Senstad in 2012. The project was realized at Las Pozas, the world-renowned surrealist sculpture garden created by British poet and patron Edward James in the rainforest of Xilitla, Mexico. This immersive project was produced as part of an artist residency in collaboration with the Edward James Foundation.
Artistic Vision & Technique
The installation features large-scale projections of Senstad’s video work, "Color Synesthesia IV", directly onto the concrete architectural and sculptural structures designed by Edward James. By utilizing the jungle-shrouded, "ruin-like" monuments as a canvas, Senstad creates a dialogue between the historical surrealist architecture and contemporary phenomenology.
The work employs fluid chromatic shifts and high-saturation light to "paint" the sculptures, momentarily transforming the solid, gray concrete into a luminous, vibrating environment. This technique de-materializes the physical structures, merging the organic shapes of the jungle, the man-made dreamscapes of James, and Senstad’s own exploration of the sensory impact of pure color.
Context & Significance
Set within one of the most significant surrealist sites in the world, this project illustrates Senstad's ability to engage with historically charged and complex architectural environments. The intervention highlights the ephemeral nature of light versus the permanence of stone, inviting viewers to experience the garden not just as a physical place, but as a space of pure perception. It stands as a profound example of how contemporary light art can breathe new life into historical sites, bridging the gap between past artistic movements and current sensory technologies.
Bring Art to Your Space
This project illustrates the ability of our artists to produce monumental, custom works for public, corporate, or private environments. IdeelArt invites you to commission a unique, site-specific installation—whether video projection, light-based, or mural—tailored to the architectural and emotional character of your building or landscape. For inquiries regarding in-situ projects or monumental abstract works, we invite you to contact our curatorial team.
New York and Oslo-based Norwegian photographer Anne Katrine Senstad’s work concentrates on sensorial responses to light, color, and form, transcendental philosophies, and social-political environmental initiatives.
Education
Anne Katrine Senstad was educated at the University of California at Berkeley, earning a BFA in Photography at Parsons School of Design and concentrating on film at the New School for Social Research in New York, which prepared her for a multi-disciplinary practice: installation, video, photography, neon sculpture, and site-specific work.
Technique
Senstad produces photographic C-prints from scanned color film negatives.
Her most recent (2020) solo exhibition at Freight + Volume in New York, Color Kinesthesia 6A42.2, in collaboration with diverse materiality, is in dialogue with Rothko’s color field paintings....
Color Kinesthesia implies the body’s response to color transitions, made possible through photographing color film negatives. As a photographer, Senstad captures a moment of light and color from an interactive installation, weaving together a cohesive multidisciplinary practice.
In contrast, the geometric phenomena of ubiquitous triangular orientation versus changing color combinations in Concrete Planes (2019-2020) speaks more of scientific and philosophical investigation rather than a transcendental experience like in the Cosmosis Collages series.
This series was created to complement Senstad’s neon light installation Elements and represents oneness with the cosmic universe as a path of enlightenment. The Suprematist and Constructivist movements inspired her, while the use of modern technology and materiality produced new visual forms.
Inspiration
Senstad’s process begins with research on perception and the cognitive response to light, sound, and color. Her clever use of neon commercial materials expresses poetic humor and articulates a literal and critical intent.
With Forget Flavin, a white neon sculpture referencing Dan Flavin, shown at Freight + Volume, Senstad straightforwardly marks her own territory in a male-dominated light art genre....
In Through The Spectrum at Athr Gallery, Jeddah, a light art exhibition in the Middle East, Senstad presents alongside James Turrell. Although she explains her work as a perceptive cognitive response to light, sound, and color, rather than Turrell’s spiritual source, it’s difficult not to compare.
What Senstad and Turrell share is an invitation to the transcendental experience.
Senstad’s installations are immersive and interactive, evoking a psychological response to light, sound, and color, rather than an interpretation of the sublime.
She seeks to represent her sensorial experimentation and investigation as unique compared to her male contemporaries.
Exhibitions
Senstad has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows throughout the United States, Norway, and worldwide.
Galleries
Kristin Hjellegjerde, London
Pink Gallery, Seoul
SL Gallery, New York City
Artworks from this Artist
Related Artworks
(Geometric, Colourful, Luminous)
Choose options
