Light Sleeper
Using one of the archetypes for shelter as a constructional model, British artist Rosie Leventon designed this cone-like structure in glass and aluminium as 'an easily portable, moveable personal space'. With resonances of the tepee of the Plains Indians Light Sleeper uses aluminium poles fastened together at the top, their bases spread out as a frame on which are hung hundreds of small sheets of glass connected with wire. For Leventon glass holds a strange quality: 'it seems to be simultaneously there yet scarcely visible, like water that has solidified.' The quasi- pyramidal shape allows energy to accumulate for the user, and provides a perceptual space that hovers between reality and imagination. This indeed is the subtext of this glass tent: it is designed to promote a meditation on vulnerability and on the illusion of solidity and permanence in life, one of the continuing themes in Leventon's work. The shelter that this glass sculpture provides is in one sense a thin layer of security that can easily be shattered, yet there is also a perceptual protection from which the mind can draw strength. - excerpt from Meditative Spaces by Michael Freeman (Universe Publishing)
2.53 x 300 x 300 cm
Glass, aluminium, stainless steel cable.
Location: Meditative Spaces by Michael Freeman. Published by Universe Publishing, Rizzoli Int. NY. (ISBN 0-7893-1065-1)
Commission: Blickling Hall, Norfolk also shown at Wells Cathedral 2019 and The Rag Factory, Brick Lane, London 2018.
