Celestial Bodies – These photographic works document an ephemeral sculpture designed to capture light, with a white surface serving as a canvas for beams painted in shadow and color bleed.
Andrew Joseph: What is your favorite aspect of your job?
Adam Rose: I love getting to just play with light. I come up with a sculptural form, spend weeks with the sculpture and a camera set up in my living room figuring out how to light it, and then spend more weeks playing with color in an almost meditative process. This turns into months with lights and camera and sculpture filling my living room, taking up space and making me dodge in and around them like Catherine Zeta-Jones moving through lasers.
AJ: What is your favorite type of lighting to use in your designs?
AR: I prefer incandescent light sources over LED. Incandescent lights contain a larger portion of the color spectrum, so objects lit by them always feel like they have a little more life and color. Additionally, when I’m exploring colored light, I prefer to use subtractive mixing, meaning I remove the unwanted color frequencies from white light by placing a colored filter in front of the light source. I find there is something so poetic about carving away everything but the little sliver of the spectrum that I want.
The interplay of highlights and gradients creates the illusion of a weightless celestial body, floating in a vibrant void.
AJ: How do you balance functionality and aesthetics in your designs?
AR: Balancing functionality and aesthetics is the reason I chose to create my work through photography. The primary focus of my artistic exploration is light, and its many qualities; however, home installations of these light sculptures would create an impractical living space. While in the future I hope to find spaces for my works as light installations, photography is a way for me to share a piece of what light can do, in a medium a collector can coexist with.
AJ: Style (or design) icon and why?
AR: Walter Wick! The photography from his I SPY books is a huge source of inspiration for me. The feelings of wonder, impossibility, and imagination that he brought to an entire generation of children (including me) using camera tricks, clever set construction, and lighting are something I often think about while creating my own art.
Adam’s work has been exhibited at art and furniture fairs including ICFF and ArtExpoNY. Upcoming shows include WestEdge Design in LA and Spectrum Miami.
AJ: What’s a new hobby/skill that you have learned recently?
AR: Ice cream making! I’ve been enjoying exploring how to create different flavors and learning a little more food science along the way. My favorite flavor to make is molasses, but I just made a lemon white chocolate ice cream that is delicious!
AJ: Can you tell us about a specific moment in your career that made you feel accomplished?
AR: At my very first art fair, an 11-year-old girl walked into my booth with her father. She had seen my work from across the room and was captivated by the color. We had a delightfully insightful conversation and eventually her father asked her “Which one do you want?” She pointed at Color-field #110 and said “That one is my favorite”. Mine too. That was my first sale.
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