Art and Text
by Lara Knutson
Form
Follows
Phenomenon
read the entire article in print in Issue 2.
THE IDEA of following my own North Star is the only thing that makes sense to me. Exploring, discovering, letting projects reveal themselves over time without forcing the outcome. This is how ideas grow roots. There are so many possibilities deep within any idea; the main goal is to take that one light further and further, carry it until the end, where the variable of time allows the truth to unfold.
In my own creative journey I can mark the moments that have been catalysts, tracing the stars back along that path.
From left: Materialized Light, exhibited at the Katonah Museum, 2014, photo by Lara Knutson; Nebula necklace for Urban Glass Gala Auction, 2014, photo by Lara Knutson.
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The idea of light being a material was born from my master’s thesis in industrial design at Pratt Institute.
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I was 36, and my thesis advisor, Bruce Hannah, encouraged us all to pursue our passions, giving me time and space to follow where threads took me. Exploring glass beads and LEDs in my studio, I could make light look three-dimensional. It could be activated and sculpted. With this effect, I construct flat rainbows from glass microspheres — using the same optical physics present when you see rainbows in the sky.
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Phenomenon drives the form. Light itself looks like something that can be touched or even inhaled. Like a new state of matter.
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read the entire article in print in Issue 2.
Above: Spreads from “Form Follows Phenomenon” from perhaps Issue 2, featuring Lara Knutson’s Mother of the Stars series, with actor Julie Spina, photo by Lara Knutson; and Zinnia, 2023, photo by Bill Kontzias.
Lara Knutson is an artist, industrial designer, and architect in New York City. Her Zinnia light was recently exhibited in the US Pavilion at the World’s Fair Expo in Osaka, Japan and her Soft Glass series is in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is also an artist fellow and active member of the National Arts Club and a part-time faculty member at Parsons School of Design. laraknutson.com
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