“Returning Gold to the Sun” was first shown at the Bolinas Museum in January 2015, in collaboration with underwater field recorder Douglas Quinn. This site specific, multi-sensory, black-lit, recycled redwood installation utilizes light, painting and sculpture to encompass audio and video from within holes in the walls (Top Left).
This painted Mandala, highlighted blacklight activated painting is the focal component of the room and first thing to be seen in the dark of a 12’x12’x8’ tall black‑lit room which can be entered from behind a black curtain. As a spectator making sense to what is being displayed before them, a visually askewed black hole cut to center of the convex wall amplifies a sound loop. While the glowing circular image of the sculpture’s center entices viewers to peak inside its cut‑out abyssal space, the sound of chattering teeth (codes of ice‑seeking walrus) and frequency of harp seals submerge the viewer. So.... this curved redwood sculpture/installation is visually simple; a 6’ diameter, glowing abstracted chiaroscuro fractal painting seems to be floating apart from the wall. Longer adjusted to the darkened room, the phosphorescent painting is revealed to be on a swelled, impregnated-like wall sculpture. The 3‑dimensional curve of the wall becomes apparent as you walk around the room. In further sense of the dimension of this piece, it is revealed that the floating painting is also contoured to a geometric pattern made of individual recycled redwood pieces forming to a concave part of the wall.
The second of three components incorporated into the interior of the gallery walls is in a cut slit in the wall. Bottle caps collected from Ocean Beach are backlight by fluorescent tubes framed from behind the faux wall.
Adjacent to the enlarged urchin was a 43”x32” constructed sea turtle shell covered in an elaborate pattern of pinecone shingles with an 8” double ended blown glass bottle embedded in it’s back. From inside, a monitor streamed a loop of a mud‑painted couple slowly leaning in a kissing in meditation posture on the Bolinas Lagoon. Headphones are attached streaming a continuous loop of frogs from the Bolinas sewer ponds. This can be shown independent of the installations in future exhibitions.