Phillip K. Smith III – “Lucid Stead” Light Installation
Phillip K. Smith III is an American artist based in Indio, California. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Phillip has recently completed a stunning light installation in the middle of the California High Desert, near the small town of Joshua Tree. Titled ”Lucid Stead,” the work is actually an artistic intervention on a 70-year-old abandoned homesteader shack that plays with the concepts of light and shadow, reflection, projection and change. The structure reflects its surroundings though mirrors placed in both the shack’s openings and some of the boards on the walls. The installation plays beautifully with the concepts of receiving and transmitting: what during the day is a passive reflective object, at night becomes a dynamic illuminating presence that projects itself outwards in bold, bright colors. The artist continues to push the boundaries and confront the ideas of modernist design. Drawing inspiration from the cold rigidity of the Bauhaus movement, he attempts to create deceptively simple and compelling objects that seem to breathe and move as you observe and interact with them.
