Flat Portal 4:1

Flat Portal 4:1 (2022) is part of Phillip K. Smith III’s ongoing Portals series, which debuted in his 85-foot pavilion for light and reflection at the 2016 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California. Smith’s Portals combine light, shadow, and changing color over an undulating surface of concentric rings composed of flat, angled, concave, and convex surfaces. Through Smith’s precisely-timed color choreography, these various surfaces seem to move forwards and backwards in space, at times combining, and challenging the audience’s perception of depth. The changing hue projected over the artwork’s metallic surface generates a ‘metallic light’ inside the artwork, transforming opaque surfaces into seemingly transparent and translucent opalescent curves. During the day, changing ambient light illuminates the three-dimensional metallic surface, and at night, the shifting hue gains perceptual prominence.