LOS ANGELES — The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA is proud to announce the exhibition Sculpted Light, featuring the innovative lighting works of artist Brian Zamora — on view Wednesday, May 29th through August 19th, 2024 at The Luckman Gallery. Sculpted Light bridges the distance between architectural design, lighting engineering, and contemporary art, offering viewers an immersive experience that foregrounds light, color, and form. The exhibition features several distinctive bodies of work by Zamora, including Color Wheel, New Lighting Devices, and the premiere of his latest series, Flowers for Euclid. At the entrance of Sculpted Light is Zamora's interpretation of the traditional color wheel, a foundational tool in color theory. Color Wheel transcends its two-dimensional representation, materializing as a glowing architectural structure that visitors are invited to enter. There they are immersed in a spectrum of hues that shift and blend, revealing the complex relationships between colors. Also featured are several earlier bodies of work by Zamora, including New Lighting Devices, a series previously exhibited at As-Is Gallery ­in Los Angeles. The New Lighting Devices are a curious set of wall objects activated by a central lightbulb which reveals a hidden trick. Somehow the shadow cast by the lamp is not the same shape as the fixture it is emanating from. The main draw of Sculpted Light is the premiere of the artist's latest body of work, Flowers for Euclid — a series characterized by the collision of Euclidean geometry and organic floral motifs, and for which color is again a central theme. On the surface, these new light sculptures appear both pop and minimalist. Through his 3D programming approach and artistic vision, Zamora has created a new synthesis. The optical illusions of earlier works have evolved into a complex array of Euclidean forms that disguise themselves as simplified flowers, and as flowers that disguise themselves as simplified geometric forms. In Flowers for Euclid, individual fixtures coalesce into a dynamic tableau, where shadows and light join in a wild dance of form and color. ABOUT THE ARTIST Brian Zamora is a 24-year veteran of Gehry Partners, where he bridged both designer and technical roles on a vast range of architecture projects. With Gehry Partners, Zamora contributed to a number of architectural projects, such as Senior Project Designer on the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC (2009-2013), and the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas (2005-2010). Zamora has been at the helm of Better Tomorrow/BCZ ARchT, a full-service design, production, and fabrication practice (founded with Mok Wai Wan) since 2017. Zamora’s architectural approach is much in line with his art, bridging visual arts and the practical through a 3D programming approach and technical understanding that was crafted and developed under Frank Gehry. Zamora’s art interests are light-based, much in the realm of the Light and Space Movement, and he works predominantly with objects and their shadows as the driving medium. The shadows and light sources do not seem to immediately relate to the objects, creating illusionary effects that seem to speak to 60’s Op Art as well. Playing in both architectural scale and object scale, the work unites elements of architecture, art, and utilitarian design. Photo credit: Bradley Wheeler Photography