Distant Rays

Dec 1

Distant Rays — Immersive Light Sculpture

Immersive light sculpture | 2022
Materials: Thermoformed acrylic, citrus dichroic film, Dedo light, turning mechanism, fishing line, brass eyelets and 10-minute looped soundscape recording of the artist playing Tibetan bowls and a rain stick.

What would it feel like to step inside a ray of sunlight?
Distant Rays invites viewers to slow down and notice everyday beauty. The work was inspired by a myth shared with the artist as a child — her grandmother Dee once explained that the radiant beams of light stretching from the sun to the ground were a divine connection between Heaven and Earth, a cosmic axis connecting us to something greater. Only later did Jade learn these were known as ‘crepuscular rays’, formed as light passes through broken clouds. The light refracts and scatters as it travels through atmospheric particles. Distant Rays is an imagining of what it would feel like to be inside a crepuscular ray.

Suspended above eye level, the sculpture’s undulating acrylic form is wrapped in citrus dichroic film and rotates slowly beneath a focused white light. This movement casts an ever-changing pool of soft pink patterned light across the floor, while blue and green reflections dance overhead. Paired with a subtle, meditative soundscape composed of rainstick and Tibetan bowl tones, the work transforms space through shifting light, sound, and stillness.

Rooted in neuroaesthetics, colour psychology, and sensory research, Distant Rays explores the emotional and physiological effects of the colour pink — known to calm the nervous system and evoke a sense of ease. Viewers move through the sculpture’s light as if entering an ethereal dream. Some pause. Some play. Some simply stand, bathed in colour. How does light affect your body, and what might it awaken in you?

Featured in:

‘Pink Impressions: Exploring the Affective Power of Pink’, Essay published by RMIT University, written by Jade Armstrong, Australia (2023).
Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) Graduation Exhibition at RMIT School of Art, Australia (2022).