CRISTOPHER CICHOCKI

The core element showcased within this multi-faceted exhibition are Cichocki’s Nucleus Paintings, an ongoing series the artist has expanded upon throughout the past decade. The transitional play between daylight and ultraviolet light within these works generates an inversion of optical sensory, thus illuminating the paintings into ‘windows of passage’ as they shift throughout a state of constant flux. Cichocki encompasses a wide range of inspirations in his work that include: the vast skylight of the Western Desert, neuron microscopy, telescopic space observations, along with Earthworks and Light and Space artists such as Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, James Turrell, and Doug Wheeler.

Cristopher Cichocki attended CalArts and Yale Norfolk School of Art. Hailing from the Coachella Valley, he has explored the depths of the California desert over the past three decades while generating exhibitions and performances throughout North America, South America, Asia, and Europe that include the Museum of Image & Sound (São Paulo), Biennale Urbana (Venice), Casa França Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), Platforme (Paris), Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego), Museum of Moving Image (New York), and the Coachella Music and Arts Festival (Indio). His work is held in many permanent and private collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, and the Lancaster Museum of Art. In 2014 Cichocki founded the curatorial platform Epicenter Projects and has recently partnered with the Paris-based Foundation LAccolade - Institut de France to create THE ELEMENTAL, a contemporary center for the arts located in Palm Springs, focused on building intersections of art, science, and environment.

Cristopher Cichocki is a Palm Springs-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates the natural world, technology and science. Nucleus, the artist’s inaugural solo show with de Sarthe Gallery, Scottsdale brings forth transitory light paintings and sculptural works into an immersive installation environment. Nucleus presents a ‘molecular cosmos’ of internal and external worlds fused between microscopic dimensions and galactic constellations.

The core element showcased within this multi-faceted exhibition are Cichocki’s Nucleus Paintings, an ongoing series the artist has expanded upon throughout the past decade. The transitional play between daylight and ultraviolet light within these works generate an inversion of optical sensory, thus illuminating the paintings into ‘windows of passage’ as they shift throughout a state of constant flux. Cichocki encompasses a wide range of inspirations that include: the vast skylight of the Western Desert, neuron microscopy, telescopic space observations, along with Earthworks and Light and Space artists such as Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, James Turrell, and Doug Wheeler.

The architectural emplacement of the exhibition is harnessed by a parallel duo of Cichocki’s Salt/Earth paintings, along with Sun Dial, the centrally aligned sculpture comprised of resin-cast aloe vera. Both components are embedded with sea salt extracted from various regions of the world, along with skins coated in layers of phosphorescence. Under darkness, these works emit a luminous glow generated from the residual energy of light stored from the sea-derived phosphorescence.

‘We live not, in reality, on the summit of a solid earth, but at the bottom of an ocean of air.’—Thales of Miletus -c. 600 B.C.