Light in Motion, Acrylicize at The Art House

Light in Motion for the art studio Acrylicize boasts a couple of firsts: it is the inaugural exhibition of this year's London Design Festival, and it's sited at The Art House, itself the newest addition to the Shoreditch Design Triangle.

Light is its theme, both as a medium and as a subject, providing the inspiration for the 12 independent designers, artists and engineers whose work the exhibition showcases. Harnessing contemporary materials and cutting edge technologies the artists seek to convey ideas about light, space, time, movement and perception. Light is thrown around the space, reflected or emitted, used to clarify or distort.

None of that, nor indeed the excellent images we picked to illustrate this review, can actually convey the wonder of seeing light in unexpected movement in pieces the apparent simplicity of which belies the complex technology thet anchors them.

Pieces such as Sinusoidal Noise by Sean Malikides, the artist who researched and assembled this exhibition.

Sinusoidol Noise by Sean Malikides

It’s an installation based on what he calls 'emergent patterns', the light that fills each of the little square voids fading on and off, and in doing so creating unique patterns that may or may not ever repeat themselves. I found it hard to detach myself from this mesmerising piece - yours for £12,000 and worth every penny.

Also ingenious and beautiful in equal measure was Maria Vera’s kinetic sculpture Empress, from Light Cycles.

A series of asymmetric lenses in different sizes are aligned in front of a light source, and as they sway according to the movement of the air around them, they refract the light to form shifting patterns on the wall. With a background in architecture and working in high precision engineering, Maria Vera loves the idea of creating for her own pleasure a piece of art that by its very nature is beyond human control.

In one way or another, most of the pieces in this exhibition appear to dialogue with the audience. Heyl & Van Dam’s Cosmobloom closes and opens in response to the movement of the viewer, and in doing so its mirror polished stainless steel surfaces acquire and reflect colour.

Cosmobloom by Heyl Van Dam 2022 courtesy of the artist

These are just some of the extraordinary works in Light in Motion, on display in the very congenial space of The Art House, all of which absolutely deserve a visit. We warmly recommend it.

Full list of exhibits and relevant info here
Full programme of the 2024 London Design Festival here