A Conversation on Color and Light with Gabriel Dawe

Now based in Dallas, Dawe grew up fascinated with his grandmother’s embroidery and frustrated with the restrictive gender roles that made it impossible for him to explore needlework as a child. Deeply interested in transcendence, Dawe hopes his art brings the viewer a sense of awe. Art & Object sat down with the artist to discuss his work.

Megan D Robinson: Why do you like to work with light? 

Gabriel Dawe: Even more than light, what I like to work with is color. If you fragment light, you get the full spectrum. In a way, light is the source of all things and the source of all colors. In paintings of the masters, there are many instances where a ray of light across the landscape signifies an angelic visitation. As my work evolved, I wanted to create these moments of awe and wonder.

I recently had an artist residency in the Arctic, and now I'm shifting focus to how light interacts with eyes, as well as with glaciers and icebergs. It's still connected to light, but in a way that's more connected to the landscape. It ties to the idea of moments of transcendence and encounters with the sublime–transcending while still being present.

MDR: Did you feel more awareness of a sense of transcendence in the Arctic?

GD: The Arctic is amazing! It's so remote and isolated, it’s almost like being on another planet. The Arctic Circle residency, in Svalbard, was one of my happy places. I can't compare it to anywhere else. I also did the Singla Residency in Arnøya, Norway. It was summer, so it's not what you expect of the Arctic. There was no snow or ice, but because it's so high up, the lights are spectacular. To me, it has a special softness that’s hard to describe. I’m totally infatuated with the Arctic– I had no idea it was going to be as captivating as I found it. This year, I have a fellowship with the National Science Foundation in Antarctica, so I'm going to the opposite end of the world. We'll see how it compares. 

For the polar installations, I use the same process as the Plexus installations–I cover spaces, working with very specific geometric principles. The threads only stretch between two points. That limits the shapes I can do in many ways. There’s some flexibility, but it's very restrictive. Some spaces are just not compatible with the geometry, they’re not conducive. A cube space offers a lot of flexibility, but, if there's a staircase, there are clearance issues. I rely on the architecture–it has to be a good marriage.

MDR: Because your thread has to be securely attached and interact with the space as well. 

GD: That's one of the things people don't think about. Thread doesn't weigh that much, but when you're stretching it, it's creating a lot of tension, so there's an equivalence of weight to that. If I cannot anchor properly into the space, I can't do anything, because I need that tension. 

MDR: Why do you like working with thread? 

GD: It goes back to color. The entry point with thread was this challenging of gender norms. It just became my material for that. But I've always had this fascination with textiles. It's a material that we're in connection with on a day to day basis. The clothes we are wearing are made of fabric, which is made from/with thread. It’s this mundane material that's pervasive in all cultures. There's probably practicalities to it as well, because in the installation process, I learned very fast that nothing I have tried works as well as thread.

MDR: You get to build this ephemeral sculpture that looks like light itself.

GD: The entire installation almost disappears. It becomes about the color, especially when seen from a distance. 

When people see my work, a lot of times, they try to make sense of how it is made. My advice is not to worry about that, just take the work in. 

MDR: It's supposed to be more experiential, because you want to bring in that experience of transcendence. If people are thinking too much, then they're not getting that experience. 

GD: Let the work take you where it can take you. Don't worry about it, because if you start trying to figure out how it's made, it can take you out of the experience.