I found myself entranced by the little things in his presentation. In the beginning he has a piece that was supposed to represent his vision when he poked himself in the eye. “Sometimes I get bored in my studio,” were his words. His ability to represent something that’s impossible to present and yet present it with rigorous accuracy is admirable. It gives hope to artists that translating the intangible into something tangible is very well possible, and can be executed and presented systematically and poetically. In reference to his Rorschach pieces in 120 Colors from My Dreams, he explained that the colors used were colors he saw in his dreams, from which he noted and tried to make by mixing paint. He stated that those colors (from his dreams) were the purest of color; they didn’t have to go through the eye apparatus. They weren’t seen by the retina through the lens. Having an antipathy toward photography, he was interesting in representing things that couldn’t be seen, i.e., the things in his head.
In his filter-work, Finch uses stained or painted glass panes (often layers of 2 colors or more) to transform the light of one space or location into the light of another. Firstly, he measures the light of the location he is presenting in and the location he is representing to figure out the difference in color temperature between the 2 locations so that he can accurately transform the light. He often uses sunlight, but also uses artificial fluorescent light as well. In using artificial light he has much of the same technique where he covers the light with different colored filters to get the desired effect. And while he takes composition of these colored panes or filters into consideration, the real piece is the atmosphere created by it, or the light reflecting off of an opposing wall. It’s in pieces like this that I’m amazed at how accurately he uses modern technology to recreate natural phenomena.
Generally, Finch’s work is inaccessible unless the concept, process and intent are understood. He mentioned that it was important to him, in its obscurity, for the audience to understand that he is representing something very accurately, and that it’s not as abstract as it comes across, though he has yet found a way to allow the audience to relate without having to give written hints presented with his work. Overall I thought he did a wonderful job of explaining the science and research behind his work, though I wish he had done it more slowly and perhaps covered fewer pieces. His website gives you the gist of his conceptual means and physical processes, though it leaves the viewer wanting more, and having left the lecture, I still wanted more. For example, during the presentation, I was barely able to process what he was saying about bees’ vision involving a spectrum of UV light and his attempt to emulate it before he moved on to the next slide.
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