Gas Light
‘Dead Happy’ Chapel Installation. St. John's Church. Waterloo, 2001
Curated by Victoria Rance
Blacked out chapel windows, gas cooker burner insets, polythene and sunlight
Gas Light
‘Dead Happy’ Chapel Installation. St. John's Church. Waterloo, 2001
Curated by Victoria Rance
Blacked out chapel windows, gas cooker burner insets, polythene and sunlight
The invisible made visible. Gas becomes light. Here there is a reversal. Light becomes gas, a metamorphosis of energies. The identities of both, are metaphysically juxtaposed. Gas is sweet, euphoric and tragic. Daylight has a cycle, it is finite and infinite, it is everchanging. This phenomena is both beautiful and frightening. What, at first, appears to be seductive and tranquil, exposes and reveals a realisation of threat and awful dread.
The eternal flame burns continuously above the doorway.
Enter the chapel to the right of the blind.
Allow time for your eyes to adjust to the low light.
As you enter there are two windows with gas burner ring inserts.
The large window to the right has two rings with sunlight.
The window straight ahead has one small has ring placed directly in front of Christ's head (the brightest
area of a stained glass window hidden from view by blackout board).
The gas ring's glow varies in intensity as the sun moves and the day progresses.