Hannah Kirkpatrick

Where Darkness Meets Light

Camera Obscura Installation by Hannah Kirkpatrick

Music by Paul S. Kim

Performed at the Chrysler Museum of Art April 2017 with Paul S. Kim (violin) and Ian Robinson (cello) and at The Glass Arts Society Conference Norfolk June 2017 with Kishi Bashi (violin and soundboard) augmenting Kim's music, Ian Robinson (cello) and Grant Gilman (violin).  

Introduction: 

Thank you all for coming tonight. You are in for something quite phantasmagorical!  I'd like to introduce Paul S. Kim and Ian Robinson. Paul is the Director and Head of Strings at Old Dominion University.  Ian is the Strings Director at Norfolk Collegiate School.  Paul and I have been working together to create a story with light, shadow, and music.  Paul composed the music especially for this performance and knew Ian would be the right cellist for such and obscure project.  The incredible Chrysler Glass Studio Assistantship team will be operation the lights and props for this evening.  

Now, please raise your hand if you know what a camera obscura is....

It is where light travels through a pinhole and projects an image of all that is lit on a surface in a dim space.  However, this image moves in opposite directions than expected: backwards and upside-down.  It make take you time to adjust to this new environment.  It is the world you know from a different perspective, and dark.  This is a story about loss and it is dedicated to my father, Bryan Kirkpatrick.  

Scenes:

Meditation

Blinking Light

Struggle

Silhouette

Adagio

Where Darkness Meet Light

Acceptance

Shimmer

Thank you and appreciation to: Paul S. Kim, Ian Robinson, Grant Gilman, Kishi Bashi, William Perry, Kelsie McNair, Ashley Berkman, Mollie Hansen, Elean Yang, Fann Chau, Yinan Chu, Jen Detlefsen, Kari Schneider, Samuel Spees, Amy Young, Aliya Zafar, Kimberly McKinnis, Gayle Forman, Robin Rogers, Echard Wheeler, and The Chrysler Museum of Art 

Video and Documentation by: Echard Wheeler 

2017

The Aperture Series is a study on glass windows, architecture, materials, and perspective.  Windows are fragile protection barriers that ironically allow us more connection to the world.  In this series, I cut away the framing architecture and material objects from the magazine pages of Architectural Digest in order to consider the window and view in isolation, with out the stuff we fill our spaces with.  The blank page becomes as important as the architecture.  The scenery from these wealthy homes is not only a view out of a window but also glimpse of a different perspective. 

Neon and Hollow Sculpted Glass Words

7’ x 10” x 2”

2013

This work maps the rhythm of unconditional love in its most testing moments, mimicking the EKG pattern of cardiac arrest.

Thank you and appreciations to: David Ablon and Chrysler Museum Glass Studio

Photo Credit: Hannah Kirkpatrick

Neon, Aluminum, Paint

24’ x 6’ x 8”

2015

The phrase, “Labor of Love” is scrawled in the artist’s handwriting.  A pink neon graph runs through the penmanship like an EKG of an unsteady heartbeat, speaking to the energy, hardships, and frustrations to sustain one’s passion.  The work was commissioned by Glass Wheel Studio and sits above the door which artists enter through to their studios.  

Permanent Collection: Glass Wheel Studios

Thank you and appreciations to: Glass Wheel Studios, Cheryl White, IDF Pen Signs, Sarah Blood, Penland School of Crafts, and William Perry

Photo Credit: Alyssa Strackbein

Wood, surveying tripod, glass, neon, light, metal

Tripod and Crate: 5' x 2' x 2'

2015

Look through this viewing device.  Do you know how the neon installation and view of the street translated into the image you see? A camera obscura uses a pinhole to project light from an exterior space, onto a surface inside a darkened area. In the process, the light is flipped and reversed.  The viewing device here explores different iterations of the camera obscura and how a repeated image can become its own entity through the use of multiple pinholes. Viewers are encouraged to interact gently with the device by turning the crate side to side. 

Thank you and appreciation to: John Roth, Seth Feman, William Perry and Bamforth Engineers, Metal Concepts, and the Chrysler Museum of Art

Mold Blown Glass

9" in diameter

2010

This work was made to contemplate the imagined interior space of the eye and the light that penetrates through, even when the eyelids are shut.  Light is transformed within the cavern and the illumination evokes the spiritual qualities of a stained glass window.

Thank you and appreciations to: David McNabb

Photo Credit: Alexandra Forsyth

Kiln Cast and Polished Glass

9” in diameter

2013

Deep Dark Depth is a solid glass casting of a large sphere with an impression of a closed eye on the front.  When viewed from the back, the viewer can see their reflection and surrounds, likening to a Claude Glass, a convex piece of glass that Sunday painters used to paint what they view what was behind them by looking into the glass for easy translation onto a two dimensional surface. The viewer can also look into the casting until the density of the glass become too dark to continue to see further in.  This object contemplates surface and depth of vision, reflections, refractions, etc.

Thank you and appreciations to: Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Damien Francoise

Photo Credit: Echard Wheeler

Kiln Cast Glass and Collected Box

11” x 5” x 2 ¾ “

2012

The glass fossils of the “Forgotten Objects” series is a collection based on objects no longer desired by their owner.  The object’s memory is preserved through the kiln casting process.  The castings are put back into the object’s original box from which it came.  The ghostly image manifests both absence and presence within the sculpture. 

The objects for Tool were collected at a yard sale in Virginia Beach, VA.  A son was cleaning the shed of his recently deceased father, who was a farmer.

The objects for Keys to the Past were collected at a yard sale in Millville, NJ.  The daughters of two recently deceased parents were cleaning out their parents’ house.  The collection of keys opened up house doors, cars, and other locks that are lost or no longer exist.

The objects for Aunt Florence’s Jewelry Box was found in my childhood room in Chatham, New Jersey.  After my aunt passed away, I inherited this box of jewelry, charms, and crests of meaningful events and moments of her life.  I found it to be a mysterious treasure chest to sort through and piece together parts of her life I was not alive for.  The memory of her absence and presence is seen through these hollow castings of objects she wore and cherished.

Thank you and appreciations to: Chrysler Museum of Art

Photo Credit: Alexandra Forsyth

Photo Credit: Echard Wheeler

Collaboration between Woodrow Collective members: Hannah Kirkpatrick, Joan Biddle, and Kristi Totoritis

Neon Installation

10’ x 5’ x 4’

2014

This work, awarded People’s Choice Award of “InLight Richmond 2014”, was made in response to the amount of homeless in Monroe Park who sought the park as their safe place.

After the Civil War, Monroe Park aimed to be part of the newly rebuilt Richmond.  Today the expansion of the university and the construction surrounding the part suggest a desire to create an idealistic space, raising questions about how the park will continue to house the homeless population that currently occupies the interior.  Much like a tree house is a sanctuary, Monroe Park is a safe place to rest for those without a place to go.

Thank you and appreciations to: Gallery 1708, William Perry, Tyler, Mark Trippico, and The Chrysler Museum of Art

Photo credit: Hannah Kirkpatrick

Collaboration with Glassitorium: Joan Biddle, Charlotte Potter, Hannah Kirkpatrick, and Kristi Totoritis

Metal, LED Lights, Neon, Vinyl, Paint, Concrete, Acrylic, Glass

Mixer Dimensions: 11ft x 8 ft x 9 ft

2015

Glassitorium is a collaborative group comprised of Joan Biddle, Hannah Kirkpatrick, Charlotte Potter, and Kristi Totoritis that was selected by the Norfolk Public Art Commission and created the inaugural public art piece for the NEON Arts District.

With this project, we wanted to pour the found for the NEON arts District with light and reflection.  The cement mixer became the housing and viewing tool as a direct reference to all of the new construction and renovations happening in the area.  The internal kaleidoscope is the perfect device to mix and reconstruct reality in dazzling ways.  We hope that as people interact with Cementiscope, they are struck by the dichotomy of the concrete drum’s grounded heaviness and the kaleidocscopic’s lightness, which is focused upward reflecting infinite possibilities.

Thank you and appreciations to:

City of Norfolk Public Art Commission, Karen Rudd, Jesse Scaccia, Downtown Norfolk Council, Mary Miller, Metal Concepts Inc., Jim Gossen + his crew, Riehl Neon, White Electric Company, Electric Contracting Company, Site Work South, and the Chrysler Museum of Art

Photo Credit: Echard Wheeler

Video Credit: Echard Wheeler

Installation by Hannah Kirkpatrick

Musical Performance by Benjamin Carpenter Hardesty and Amos Housworth of The Last Bison

2014

During the performance, participants used different light sources (neon, candles, torches, christmas lights, light bulbs, molten glass, etc.) behind a camera obscura wall, where each pinhole projected the objects onto a tracing paper screen.  The overall moving image created acted like a pixilated screen that are seen commonly as backdrops to musical performances.  This “pixilated” screen was, instead, made from analogue devices and natural phenomena. 

Thank you and appreciations to: Chrysler Museum Glass Studio and Team, The Last Bison Team, William Perry, Hill Neon.

Photo and Video Credit: Echard Wheeler

Collaboration with Kishi Bashi and Robin Rogers

Performance

2013

Initiated by Kishi Bashi, we worked together to create a set design for a performance at the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio and to bring on his Spring 2013 tour.  

The set design consists of various glass rondels that rotate on a motorized, retrofit overhead projector and stand.  The projections were cast upon the studio wall and moving screens while Kishi Bashi performed.   

During the early night of the performance, More Than Meets the Eye, a marquee made from explosions of glass Prince Rupert drops was placed upon the stairs leading into the studio while guests entered. Mike Savino of Tall Tall Trees played a set, backed by glass blowers blowing cellophane bubbles. In the evening, Kishi Bashi joined Mike on stage to perform amongst projections made from the rotating glass rondels.  The night’s finale finished with Kishi Bashi playing inside a mirrored spinning geodesic sphere, created by Robin Rogers. 

Thank you and appreciations to: Chrysler Museum Glass Studio and Team and Kishi Bashi and Team

Photo and Video Credit: Echard Wheeler

Neon and Wood

34” x 16” x 5”

2013

In the interest of the visual subjectivity of afterimages and the theory that afterimage colors are the complementary color of the object looked at, I created a red neon work that read “green”.  Participants were invited to describe the color of their own afterimage – results varied.  

Thank you and appreciations to: Hill Neon

Photo credit: Echard Wheeler

Collaboration with, photographer, Brett Henrikson

Glass, Wet Plate Collodian, Plant Matter

2013

This project is about synthesis.  Photo-synthesis, Chemical-synthesis, and Artistic-synthesis. Synthesis are works that capture the momentary meeting of life and death, forever entombed in glass and silver.

In process, the artists combined their working methods to create a synthesis between their materials: photography and glass. The collodian process is an alchemic process, the ability to take inert ingredients and transform them into something magical and beautiful.  The artists created glass photographic plates, covered in silver, and fused organic material between them at 1400 degrees Fahrenheit.  During this heating, the dull silver from the collodian plates turned into a lustrous orange sheen reminiscent of amber.  The memory of plant matter is preserved through destruction. Although these entombed specimens are objects, they act as photographs, an index of what once was and what now remains in a silver sliver of time.

Thank you and appreciation: Chrysler Museum Glass Studio

Photo Credit: Brett Henrickson

Photograph of a Camera Obscura projection

24”x18”

2010

The photograph was part of a material investigation into the use of multiple pinholes to create one image.  This investigation brought up ideas of filmstrips and pixels and led to further installations and experiments with camera obscuras.  In this image, I, as subject, am projected three times through three pinholes onto a screen that was photographed.  The single image created alludes to voyeurism of someone curiously looking at another person who is doing the same.   

Photo Credit: Hannah Kirkpatrick

Installation

Camera Obscuras, tracing paper, wood, light, participant interaction

2010

Obscura Walk is an installation comprised of 9 pinholes in a wall that divides a lighted space and a darkened space.  As participants walk down the lightened corridor, their image and movement is projected through the pinhole onto a tracing paper screen and likens to the appearance of a filmstrip.  Since camera obscura project image upside-down and horizontally reversed, the moving image of the participant walking becomes disorienting to the viewer and plays with our normal expectations of movement.  

Photo Credit: Hannah Kirkpatrick