VICTORIA HYNES takes us on a journey through John Nicholson’s translucent and opaque confections.

Take an evening stroll down the suburban streets of any major city and chances are you’ll be lured by the digital lights flickering from household flat-screen TV screens and desktop computers as much as you are by the night sky. Sculptor John Nicholson is fascinated by light — not only visible rays of natural light but also the invisible electromagnetic currents that vibrate through the atmosphere and transmit digital information.

He translates these prisms and pixels of light into striped blocks of luminous colour — striated minimalist sculptures employing a rainbow palette which initially appears deceptively simple. In their most basic form they could be described as solidified slabs of light.

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Image: John Nicholson, Collision, 2007, plastic, 38 x 75 x 4cm. Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery.