ADELA ANDEA: Midnight Zone(s)

About

The Houston-based, Romanian-born artist returns to the gallery after a yearlong, highly lauded exhibition at the Center for International Light Art in Unna, Germany. Andea's installations and light sculptures employ a unique visual vocabulary based on reinterpreting our current perception of nature through the eyes of new media art using the latest technologies. Inspired by the bioluminescence of underwater sea life, Andea continues to focus on form, color, and space, fully submerging the viewer into an all-encompassing and temporal experience. 

In this current body of work, Andea evokes the literary adventures of French novelist Jules Verne, taking the viewer on a futuristic voyage into the dark depths of the ocean, also known as the midnight zone. Building a relationship between technology and nature, the artist distills her observations of the world into glowing candy-colored light sculptures that are akin to the sea creatures one might find in the darkest part of the ocean. 

Similarly to her contemporaries, James Turrell and Keith Sonnier, Andea is investigating how light can radically alter and rearticulate the space shared by the work and the viewer. Utilizing and combining mass-produced industrial materials such as LED lights, flex neon, foam, and Plexiglas, the artist creates a fantasy world poised between organic biological forms and glowing technological structures, confounding the viewer with illusions of real light versus electrical light.

From the Artist: 

“In pursuit of new discoveries, the recent work is based on fictional oceanscapes and creatures. A reinterpretation of nature that allows imagination to flourish. The title refers to a layer in the ocean which is lightless, under high pressure, between 3000 and 10,000 feet deep. The most bizarre and fascinating creatures have adapted to survive under those conditions. Oceans are the most beautiful and at the same time most terrifying unexplored places. Underwater bioluminescence phenomenon continues to be an inspiration for the artworks illuminated from the inside and outside.” 

About the Artist:

Adela Andea received her Master of Fine Art in 2012 from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, becoming the inaugural graduate of the school’s New Media program. Since then, her sculptures and installations have been widely exhibited in such museums and institutions as The Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, NY; Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Crystal Palace, Bordeaux, France; The Museum of Geometric and MADI Art, Dallas, TX; Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX; and The Grace Museum, Abilene, TX. Her visionary installations have awarded her invitations to many art fairs, as well as to the Zebra3 Artist Residency in Bordeaux, France, the 2013 Texas Biennial in Houston, TX, the 2015 International Kinetic Exhibition and Symposium in Boynton Beach, FL, and the 18th Annual Texas Sculpture Symposium, held at Texas Tech University in 2015, Lubbock, TX. She has been a visiting artist, speaker and panelist at Texas Tech University during the sculpture symposium along with Judy Pfaff. In 2015, she participated with a large installation in the International Kinetic Art Exhibit and Symposium in Boynton Beach, Florida. In 2018, she collaborated with globally renowned designer Steve Madden for the design of his newest factory release in New York, NY. Her work has been featured on PBS, MoMA Talks, in the Houston Chronicle, art ltd. magazine, Modern Dallas, USA ARTnews, Colossal Magazine, and can be found in several national and international private and corporate collections. Primordial Garden, her monumental 15,500 feet installation was acquired by Texas Tech University for their permanent collection. In 2019, Andea installed a permanent public art piece titled The Great Barrier Reef at the Drewery Place Lobby, Caydon USA and Houston Art Association in Houston, TX. In 2022, Andea installed a 60 feet long and 16 feet high installation titled, Chaos Incarnate, at the Center for International Light Art in Unna, Germany for their 20th anniversary. Shortly thereafter, the museum acquired a permanent installation of Andea’s work titled, Chaos Exsctructa. Currently, Andea has an installation at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, TX.