Brookhart Jonquil: Endless Light in An Endless Night

Emerson Dorsch is proud to present Endless Light in an Endless Night, an exhibition of seven new glass and light sculptures by Brookhart Jonquil. Building on previous sculptures which delved into the geometric, material, phantasmic potentials of reflection, Jonquil turns his motifs in an investigation of “continuous cycles of expansion” and infinity. The opening reception for the artist will be Wednesday, April 25, 5-10pm, at Emerson Dorsch, 5900 NW 2nd Ave, Miami, FL.

Jonquil writes, “In this work I’m looking at continuous cycles of expansion and rest that seem to be found in everything that changes through time. A tree doesn’t grow in a linear way, at a steady and unchanging rate, but in bursts of growth in the spring and summer followed by an austere fall and winter. The cycles inscribe themselves in the concentric rings that emanate from the core of the tree. This image was not in my mind when I made this work, but seems connected because they both connect to that essential cycle.

The human body has no rings to count, but our experience of these vicissitudes is certain, and the quality of our life depends greatly on our attitude toward this flux. I can count only these basic circumstances in which a person will be afraid: While enjoying either action or rest, they fear that it will end and be replaced by the other. Or, finding the action or rest unpleasant, they fear that it will persist, that the other will not come. When the idea of infinity is added, these fears can become terrifying. Yet adding the idea of infinity with understanding of the cycle, one is reassured that night will always pass, and that the sun will always return again. It is in fact the nature of the infinite that allows us to say ‘this will not be forever.’

These sculptures take this dynamic as both the essential human drama, and as our essential refuge from it. In the same way that a work of architecture shelters and becomes alive with the activity that fills it, these sculptures are perceptual environments that hold a continuous transformation of light and space. Reflections in mirrors create a world that extends into the immaterial. Subtler reflections in glass create infinities within infinities. To point at the endless, the works use abrupt truncation.

While the viewer’s body does not enter these objects, their mind does, and like a Greek temple or a Gothic cathedral, the space within is organized to establish a conducive environment for the experience of truth. Skillful precision clears away the noise and guides us toward smoother vicissitudes, so that we can hear the truth of the total system. Sometimes expanding, sometimes resting, always already in harmony.”

– From Brookhart Jonquil’s Artist Statement, March 2018.