The colors are dancing with each other as you walk through Laura Moore’s painting at Psychedelic Robot. Their rhythms are subtle at first, but the more you invest in absorbing them, the more they vibrate against each other, until you notice that some erase themselves and some step forward.
This dance took months to choreograph, because it's not a flat canvas, but art with a floor plan. Moore’s “Loving Life” is the first finished work at a soon-to-open pop-up art gallery at The Crescent in Uptown.
“I’m hoping this room makes you feel unexpected joy," Moore said. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes with this room. That’s interesting to me."
Part of what’s interesting comes from more than 100 “chevrons” that hang at various levels from the ceiling, painted to both blend in and contrast with the walls. When seen by a viewer who’s moving, they give movement to a stationary work. When viewed while standing still, the chevrons challenge the eye to pick them out.
Tricking the eye and the brain are the engine powering the work.
“This white is not white,” she said as she referenced a strip of color on a chevron. “If we had a sheet of paper next to this it would be beige.”
Not all the works at Psychedelic Robot, which will be open only 10 days beginning September 20, are as subtle.
LeCash, (@leCash) is a graffitti artist from Los Angeles. The Color Condition, a Dallas partnership, uses strands of colored paper to create hangings enhanced by the wind. Izk is a West Dallas street artist whose work graces walls around Trinity Groves. Pineapple Park, a collective from North Texas, includes a builder and a graphic artist. Lidia Vitkovskaya and Denis Mikhaylov, a pair of artists from Moscow, yes the real Moscow, were prizewinners in this year’s Venice Biennale.
“It’s not like a normal art fair,” says Michael Bivins, whose gallery is sponsoring Robot. “These artists are not hanging. They’re painting the walls and creating an immersive experience…You walk in their vignette ... It’s experienced ... It's almost Woodstock for millennials.”