Meryl Taradash - The Frozen Rain Series

Meryl Taradash invited well-known collector/developer David Bermant to see her solo show at Gallery Henoch in Soho last spring. Impressed with her work, Bermant commissioned her to do an outdoor piece for his mall in Hamden, Connecticut. Her Frozen Rain Series, completed last August, casts kaleidoscopic patterns of light across pedestrians as they enter and exit the mall. The shifting light reflections encompass an area of 13 by 16 by 9 feet, and their expansive spectrums are intended to fuse the artwork with its environment. The piece consists of four suspended acrylic prisms which rotate with the breezes under a concrete marquis. A fifth prism is attached to a painted brick wall by a spiraling blue lacquered brass rod. Taradash shaped each prism by hand, heating precut clear and colored acrylic shapes for two to three hours and then twisted them into their final forms in a matter of minutes. By bending the shape of the prism, Taradash was able to bend the shapes of the refracted spectrums. The prisms are lit from above and below by six low-voltage lights. "In the evening," says Taradash, "the light reflections are intensified and begin to dissolve the sculptural forms." Frozen Rain Series is Taradash's first outdoor commission and a good deal of the information about how the various shapes would be affected by their environment became clear only after the piece was installed. The artist expects more surprises as the seasons change.

Sculpture Magazine, November/December 1988