Helios assembles seven new media works by New York based artist Hap Tivey. The exhibition is titled after the artist’s latest body of work and showcases six new works from the Helios series, as well as a genesis piece titled Icarus, 2019. Additionally, a short five-minute film on the artist, produced for the occasion of the show, is also on view.

Tivey first began making art and studying Rinzai Zen in the late 1960s, pursuing, in his words, “the concrete experience of light as well as the emotional and theoretical implications it holds for the human condition.”

The Helios series originated in 2020 and consists of moving-image wall works, each with a unique sequence of shifting light that vary in duration, intensity and value. The changes in color and light are carefully composed by the artist, occurring in the background and within the glowing circle, or sun shape, at the center of the work. The abstract imagery cycles on a loop that lasts twelve minutes or less, consciously timed for perceptual impact.

Designed to elicit reactions unique to the individual, responses to a Helios work can range from a peaceful coexistence between mind and body to a more cognitive revelation, such as a kinesthetic experience of visual energy. Tivey foregrounds the viewer's reaction to his work, going so far as to posit that the real work is not the light but the viewer’s perception of it. Helios gives us insight into how we perceive light and, in doing so, the gift of perception itself.