Alexander Knox describes his wall-mounted light sculpture 5:19 (2008) as ‘an abstract therapeutic landscape’¹, which at first seems surprising for a work that appears to take pure colour and light as its primary subject. Housed inside a sleek and distinctly minimalist glass and steel frame are mirrors and fluorescent tubes in subtle shades of crimson, pink and white. The work’s slowly unfolding and quietly alluring coloured light sequences give the illusion of movement. The refraction of light caused by the mirrors and their progressively diminishing reflections creates an amassed visual reverberation and that heightens the poetic tenor of the work. Knox sees these as ‘reminiscent of the cosmic hum, the white noise that is believed to be the reverberation throughout the universe of the big bang’.²

At the time of making 5:19, Knox was pre-occupied with ideas of the romantic sublime. In particular he was looking at the epic and apocalyptic landscape paintings of nineteenth-century English artist John Martin, which in Victorian times were hugely popular with the general public, despite their foreboding subject matter. In this sense, they can be seen to have prefigured the cinematic envisioning of cataclysmic events in today’s block-buster disaster movies. Martin’s depiction of swirling red, pink and white light to convey the fury of the volcano in his painting The Destruction of Pompei and Herculaneum, 1822 has a particular chromatic resonance with 5:19.³

In his paintings, Martin typically portrays nature as an immense, awe-inspiring and terrifying force with humanity at its mercy, and subject to its will, as is typical of many nineteenth-century romantic artists. In the twenty-first century and the age of the Anthropocene however, nature looks to be more in danger from humans and their technology, than the other way around. ‘Technology and our visions of it are more likely location for the sublime today’, Knox suggests, while man-made disasters such as ‘shearing ice shelves, superstorms, global pandemics and water wars are part of our new awesome imaginings. I am interested in the idea that seemingly abstract works could try to key into and talk to these anxieties’.

With its glimmering industrial materials and precise electronic sequences Knox’s abstract sublime is cool, futuristic and entrancing to watch, while its play with mirrors, light and illusion adds a level of perceptual mystery. The work invites a calming, meditative kind of viewing, and in this way is therapeutic, not least as an antidote to the fast pace of contemporary life. Its title 5:19 refers to the period of time survived after an imagined future apocalypse. With its slowing of time and soothing sequences of colour and light, the artwork itself prepares us to face our fears, and draw strength for what may lie ahead.

1 Unless otherwise stated, all quotes from Alexander Knox are from an email 6 November 2015

2 Email from Alexander Knox, 9 March 2016

3 See http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/martin-the-destruction-of-pompei-and-herculaneum-n00793 [accessed 16 February 2016]

Born 1966 Melbourne, where he lives and works
alexanderknox.com

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Murray White Room, Melbourne