Jeppe Hein, Moon Mirror (2019), via 303
Artist Jeppe Hein rounds out a new show of works at 303 Gallery this month, a selection of works that continue a frank, emotive sensibility and a meditative approach towards perception and understanding in his work. The show, including neon works, LED-lit sculptures and painted canvases, seems to reflect and rework a range of expressive tendencies from the contemporary canon through a colorful, subdued lens.
Jeppe Hein, Continuity Breath 1 (2019), via 303
Finding inspiration in the constant regeneration of perception, Hein’s work asks the viewer to become aware of the elemental processes that form sensory reality, the idea of his works as both material constructions and nuanced experiences of their totality, as well as their contributions to a larger whole within the gallery. Born from ideas in Eastern philosophy and sculpture’s potential for profound spatial recombination, the works offer a world of experiential simultaneity. Intersecting Circles uses the artist’s mirror lamellae (tall strips of highly polished mirror anchored to the floor) to create a blurred, labyrinthine experience of the gallery space. Walking through the space awakens the latent capacity for infinite suggestive spaces, causing a temporary interruption in experience that is both disorienting and elevating. On opposing walls, Sun Mirror and Moon Mirror face one another, each made from fragments of mirror reflecting multiple angles in one plane. They slowly rotate around their respective centers, a planetary, mathematical movement that here also perpetuates a kaleidoscopic view of one’s self and surroundings. Putting the viewer’s place in the world in flux, Hein asks for a pause to focus on the act perceiving in a new way.
Jeppe Hein, Breathe from Pineal to Hara (2019), via 303
Jeppe Hein, I AM WITH YOU(2019), via 303
Other works explore ideas of balance and experience as both mental and physical processes. Breathe From Pineal to Hara, a visual representation of an energy-balancing breathing exercise, consists of concentric rings of colored neon behind a two-way mirror, rhythmically lighting up to demonstrate calming, hypnotic patterns that incorporate experiences of the body and the work. As the rings alight from inner to outer and back again, the shifting reflections of viewers and the surrounding space activate new images while the hypnotic rhythm of the neon intimates a breathing cycle. The usually unconscious act of breathing becomes a subject, a physical manifestation of being part of this world as well as propositional others. Experiencing one’s self in different permutations in one space, situating the body and mind in new ways, Hein acts as guide to an inner voice, a picture of existence that involves fragmented and multiple perspectives at once.
The artist’s show closes October 19th.
— D. Creahan
Read more:
Jeppe Hein: I Am With You [Exhibition Site]
