Light artist Brigitte Cowans dies at 64

Kwan’s artistic language also meets people who aren’t necessarily looking for art spaces: in 2010 the slogan “Now I See” flashed across the facade of the Uniqa Tower on Vienna’s Danube Canal. Their “Circles of Light” can be seen from afar on the “Dragonfly” on the roof of the Leopold Museum. Whoever crosses the State Bridge in Salzburg in the direction of the city center will see a neon sign in semi-reflective cubes, reminiscent of the slave laborers who built the bridge.

Objects often seem light, sometimes spectacular, yet they draw their viewers into philosophical depths – not only because of the infinite effects that are produced by semi-transparent mirrors.

visible light

The paradox that light makes everything visible but usually remains invisible is fascinated by koans. Originally working as an illustrator, I researched early on the ability of light to create space in pairs using a variety of materials.

Paper and canvas paintings with various light-based pigments, which she created in the early 1980s with her then partner Franz Graf, formed a starting point. Since 1984 he has created his first light bodies and works with fluorescent colours.