PS / 2025

Portals in Stone

projection, light, stonerock formations near Tulsa, Oklahomasunset study
May 3, 2025 · Film by Chad Mount

A conversation with the last light

Improvisation has been at the heart of my practice for years: arriving at a potential canvas and responding to what the place offers. Here, an opening between two boulders became a meeting point for stone, projected light, and the setting sun.

I adjusted the light compositions in real time as the sun moved through that opening, letting its changing light guide the work. As color gathered, dissolved, and emerged from shadow, the shifting light formed patterns reminiscent of nebulae and luminous plasma clouds.

Violet projected light surrounds a dark opening in a rock face at night, forming a second portal. Photograph by Rob Helms.
Photograph: Rob Helms

Later that night

A second portal

Shifting violet light and shadow formed a second portal in another opening in the rocks.