A reception and discussion will be held this Friday to present a large-scale, site-specific installation of lights illuminating the Dutch Reformed Church in the City of Newburgh.
The opening reception and artist talk will be held on Friday, July 15, 2022 at 8:30pm at the church’s location at 134 Grand Street. The work will be viewable from sunset to midnight every night through September 30, 2022.
Stemming from a longstanding interest in creating spiritual protection through light, and quantum field theory, artist Liz Nielsen will express an imagined sense of space by wrapping the building in a glowing “forcefield” 60 feet high. She will utilize light to create defined energy pathways, marking energy in space through architecture that yields a metaphorical protective shield.
The lights will be paired with a subtle sound of faint heartbeats to express the collective history and responsibility towards this structure, and the City of Newburgh. This poetic gesture further emphasizes the building as a spiritual being, with 187 years of life and history.
Newburgh’s Dutch Reformed Church is a National Historic Landmark built in 1835 by Alexander Jackson Davis, and is considered one of the most important examples of Greek Revival architecture in the area.
Nielsen is a contemporary artist working in light and photo, based in Brooklyn and Newburgh, NY.
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.
