Rebecca Cummins and Stephanie Simek
Lumina
“Lumina” references both light and a cavity or opening. Simek and Cummins respond to this dual meaning: the measurement of illumination and its lack.
![](https://www.4culture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Spore-Drift2.jpg)
- March 2 - 30, 2023
- Opening: Thursday, March 2, 6:00 — 8:00pm
Artist Talk: Thursday, March 30, 5:00 – 6:30 pm
Holes are relational, referential objects. Their size, beginning, and end are dependent on the material that surrounds them. Can a hole take on its own identity, independent of its host? Can a substance riddled with holes instead be perceived as one continuous, meandering (w)hole? These elusive interpretations in the fields of mathematics and philosophy provide the conceptual starting point for Stephanie Simek’s multimedia works. Considering absence and emptiness as her primary material, she explores the generative potential of the void.
Light and its absence also inform Rebecca Cummins’ work. Where is Midnight? was realized on the summer solstice in 2021 in Finnish Lapland during 24-hour daylight. Cummins enlisted herself as the gnomon (an object whose shadow serves as a time indicator on a sundial) and recorded her shadow by drone at both solar midnight and solar noon. The juxtaposition invites a unique consideration of how the Earth’s movements affect light occurrences specific to the time of day, time of year and to geographic location. Spore Drift documents mushroom spore prints created during the pandemic. Over time, spores fall from the mushroom caps, producing a fine powder that varies in color and character. Cummins says, “In this magical process, it’s as if the mushrooms are drawing themselves on the paper provided. The images formed by the cast-off spores resemble photographic negatives; they seem to contain light, both cosmic and spectral. Moreover, each print features a black hole, evidence of an excised stem, further accentuating the otherworldly quality of these abstract configurations.”
Presented together, these photographs and sculptures serve as a complement, a simultaneous index of where something is and where something isn’t.