Glimmers of the radiant real

Working in materials such as gold, glass, foil and plastic, nine artists create works that glimmer, sparkle and shine, revealing far more than their surface value. Radiance, that quality of light so often associated with the marvelous and the modern, is subverted in these works by the relationship between the quality of a surface and what it covers, reflects, or contains: gilded insect wings sketch a house's morbid geography, material treatments upend expectations of form and colour, and dollar-store detritus, sunk in resin, seems to glow behind glass, and more. These glistening, shining surfaces manipulate the viewer's perception of dimension through reflections and refractions, un-forming the object. The combination of familar materials and perceptual distortion, the mirrored illusion of extended space, the fracturing and projection of the viewer's body, and rainbow refractions of white gallery light all work to create an uncertaintly about the realiity of the experience. Underlying the physical perceptions of the works are aesthetic associations ranging from glamour to kitsch, celebration to science.