Rebecca Baumann

Light Interference (Refracted Field)
Light Interference (Spectral Transmission)

Rebecca Baumann works across sculpture, installation and performance and her practice explores the relationships between colour, time, movement, space and materiality, and the emotive potential that exists when these elements converge in different ways. Often kinetic or ephemeral, Baumann’s work has employed a wide range of playful and experimental materials, including confetti, balloons, vinyl, streamers, smoke and tinsel. Baumann’s work questions notions of temporality and permanence – bringing her audiences into changing, affecting and performative spaces that respond in different ways to changes in light and movement.

Baumann’s project at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Light Interference, consists of two site-specific works that sit across the Gallery’s Big Wall and atrium: Light Interference (Refracted Field) and Light Interference (Spectral Transmission). Carefully considering the Gallery’s architecture and the role natural light plays within these spaces, Baumann used a dichroic film in both works. This colour-shifting material transmits and reflects a range of colours depending on the strength and direction of sunlight and the position of the viewer. Light Interference (Spectral Transmission) runs the length of the Gallery’s skylight, as well as sections of the front window panels. Depending on the time of day and the weather, the atrium can be flooded in soft washes of colour or intersected by intensely colourful beams of light. In Light Interference (Refracted Field), on the Gallery’s Big Wall, the dichroic film takes on a physical and sculptural form. In these works, the presence of particular colours, shapes and reflections are fleeting – some lasting for only a moment. Creating an engagement with art that is both subjective and often momentary, Baumann’s work explores what it means to sculpt with intangible forms.

Rebecca Baumann (b.1983) lives and works in Boorloo / Perth, Australia. Recent solo exhibitions include Radiant Flux, Carriageworks, Sydney (2020); Window work (intersections and notations), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2018); and WA Focus: Rebecca Baumann, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth (2016). Her work has been included in a range of group exhibitions including Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning, 1301PE, Los Angeles, USA (2021); Autoluminescent, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, Victoria (2019); and Kaleidoscope: Abstract Aotearoa, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (2018). Baumann’s work is held in collections across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand including Art Gallery of Western Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; and Dunedin Public Art Gallery.