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Published on: 12th of December 2011
Current city: Vienna

Sometimes in the most unexpected places we meet the most surprising people. At least, that was how I felt when I met Victoria Coeln, a light artist in Vienna. I wasn´t very familiar with her work but little I knew what I had been missing out. As soon as I entered her atelier and pointed out to the coloured shadows that I had glimpsed over a table, we both realised this could be the beginning of a long and fruitful conversation. She smiled back and I followed her along with Reka Vass to her dark studio. She switched on the light projector and there were beautiful colours projected in the back wall, just like a painting. This is pure light, she said.

At this point I have to confess I was always fascinated with coloured shadows. We’ve all seen it probably, we know how it works, but somehow they still trigger the inner child in me. I think  maybe because this was the beginning of my passion for light, when I attended a seminar by Peter Gasper back in 2004, a well known Brazilian lighting designer. In a few minutes he explained the whole theory of the RGB system and showed how this worked in my brain, just by making us experiencing this. It was something I knew in theory and I had studied over and over throughout school but sometimes seeing is believing. Last year, I had the chance of doing a small installation at a Festival using the principles of RGB and it still inspired people.

I was very curious and intrigued how Victoria had achieved such spectacular effects. She began to explain me how she uses dichroic glass filters in order to get such colours, using the principles of RGB more common in theatrical techniques. With the technological developments of these filters some things became possible which were never imagined before and, in this sense, Victoria has been a pioneer by developing her own filters and techniques. By scratching and etching and overlapping different filters she achieves all these different colours that have become the basis of her work. I paint with light and I paint from light! -  she added along with the fact that most of her inspiration she takes from painters. She not only does light installations but she has explored other means too, such as photography and media projection.

After I played with my own shadow, the best was yet to come. Once again, I was very lucky with the timing and on the same night Victoria was going to test her last installation at the main Cathedral in Vienna and I would be one of the first people to see it!

When I entered the Cathedral, still a remarkable building, it felt like a regular church, but as soon as Victoria switched on the lights, something came to life. All the sculptures and reliefs along  the columns gained vivacity and it was something that you never expect at a church.

The inspiration for Victoria actually came from the coloured glass windows that are common in such religious buildings, but in Vienna after the WWII, the broken windows were replaced with frosted glass losing all the richness of colour of such fenestrations. In the exterior she used the same principle in order to get people inside the church and from the few hours that we were there I think this was very successful and inspiring.

Actually the installation is part of a meditation program for the advent at the cathedral throughout December. The fact that people as soon they entered the cathedral came into silence with such a spectacular and beautiful setting, made me wonder about how light can be so meaningful but still very powerful when we experience it into a setting like this. No matter what religion you are from, light can definitely become somehow spiritual!