Portfolio: Adam Belt

You Seduced Me and I was Seduced, 2013, wood, paint, epoxy, glass microbeads, light, 80 x 80 in., photo: Philipp Scholz Rittermann.

[Image description: A square painting in bluish-gray hung on a white wall. In the center is a ring of light, which appears to be projected from an upright lamp in front of the painting.]

When thinking of the sublime in art, one often returns to the landscape paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet a more recent and (at least to our dear San Diego readers) proximal art movement approached the sublime from a wholly different angle. While historical examples focused on the profound vastness of creation brought to you by a higher power (the Judeo-Christian God), the artists associated with the Light and Space movement of the 1960s approached the sublime phenomenologically. Their art evidences an outwardly secular interest in heightening a viewer’s conscious experience of an object or a space, with a strong emphasis on subjectivity. The works of James Turrell, Robert Irwin, and Mary Corse perfectly crystallize this tendency towards revelatory experiences created through abstract language. In different ways, these three artists used light to transform objects and spaces, and in so doing, altered the viewer’s perception of their environment and sense of themselves. These works were immersive and surprising, given their spartan appearance, as they revealed themselves to the viewer in space and time, defying representation and demanding presence. 

Contemporary artist Adam Belt reaches toward the sublime with reference to landscape and re-invigorates the approach of artists such as Turrell, Irwin, and Corse. His works use the phenomenological approach of the Light and Space movement, but often connect to the natural world well beyond the art gallery. However, like the landscape painters discussed above, his work demonstrates a clear interest in the divine. These multi-media works prompt an acute awareness of our bodies and selves, aiming to remind us of our place in the universe and challenging us to consider what—or even who— has made this whole existence possible. 

You Deceived Me and I was Deceived, 2014, wood, paint, epoxy, glass microbeads, light, 80 x 80 in., video: Adrian Henke.

[Video description: A square painting hangs on a wall in a small gallery space. As the camera moves around, an image of a circle with a a chromatic ring around it moves in front of the painting and changes size as the camera gets closer and farther away.]

The series of works that includes You Enticed Me and I was Enticed (2015); You Deceived Me and I was Deceived (2014); and You Seduced Me and I was Seduced (2013) encapsulates this formula to profound effect. These three works consist of painted panels in three different values (black, grey, and white) coated with glass microbeads. In each piece, one’s typical position in relation to a painting— directly in front of it— has been taken by another. In the viewer’s place stands an upright piece of studio lighting, which functions not only a stand-in for the viewer but also the keystone to the work. This relation between the light and viewer creates the piece, or rather reveals the true nature of the piece —that it never actually ends. As the viewer moves around the installation and changes their perspective on the treated surface before them, the focal point of the work becomes almost holographic; it glides about and remakes the piece anew. The elusive phenomenon created in the space is somewhere between a 360-degree rainbow and the corona seen during solar eclipse. 

Transfigured Stone, 2013, rose quartz, reflective paint, light, 17 x 27 x 18 in., photo: Philipp Scholz Rittermann. To see video of the installation, click here.

[Image description: A craggy chunk of glowing rose quartz sits on a gray floor.]

Belt’s Transfigured Stone (2013) uses a similar strategy, but by virtue of its installation creates an entirely different experience. In this work, the light is hung from the ceiling and pointed towards a sizable chunk of quartz, encrusted in glass microbeads, lying on the ground. As the viewer circumambulates the stone, it starts to glow. With another step, it appears overflowing with light. It is then that one might make the conceptual connection between the earthbound quartz (a seemingly lifeless physical object) and the light source (quite literally a lofty, animating force).

Northward, 2019, light from the northern part of the sky, SOLATUBE, scrim, paint, 41 x 41 in.

[Image description: A ghostly image appears on the wall, with a clearly defined central circle that is brightest surrounded by a gradient of light fading off into the color of the wall.]

In Northward (2019), Belt works with a different kit of parts to make a quantum leap from these earlier works. In this installation, Belt creates a virtual sun on what appears to be a typical wall in the gallery. In actuality, the image is created using a Solatube®— a very efficient tubular skylight — which pierces the building’s wall, pointed towards the north. The skylight focuses this typically soft light and projects it on a scrim “wall” for the viewer within the gallery. The sense of time in this piece is much slower than the earlier works. Over time, the image on the wall will change in intensity and hue, and will cease to exist at night. It takes the piece longer to change, as it is modulated by the relative location of the earth, sun, and cloud conditions rather than a viewer’s relatively rapid movements in the gallery. To arrive at the eureka moment takes great patience on the viewer’s part. The work is a satisfying mystical puzzle. How has this tiny sun come to live inside this building? It is an illusory sun created within the gallery— however, the illusion is made from little more than a collection of the very rays of light leaving the actual sun. 

In these works, and Belt’s practice at large, we stand witness to acts of creation. Unlike in the historical examples of the sublime, we are not seeing a meticulous representation, but rather something more akin to the Light and Space artists’ cool minimalism. In Belt’s work, the viewer is invited to substitute the light source for the higher power of their choosing. For some, that entity is in the very room, creating and sharing in our experience with the work. For others, the creator of the work is outside the gallery, or maybe even beyond our planet, and we are reminded of our place in the expanse. Belt’s art is a generous reworking of distinct influences, which simultaneously operates on an intimate register and at the most expansive scale.

— Matthew Hebert, artist. Hebert was a participant in the 2021 HereIn Writers Workshop.