Michai Morin’s digital pieces play with the viewer’s perception of reality, offering a door to another dimension of the artist’s creation. Inspired by his study of optics, Morin’s compositions use light, refraction, shape, material, and contrast to transfix the viewer. Morin’s process entails printing Ultra High Definition (UHD) images on acrylic glass panels. He aptly describes his pieces as “digital abstract sculpture” given their supple, three-dimensional appearance.
In “Castalia” we see two orbs hanging in space above a form with a circular opening. Morin bends and shapes the light around these objects giving them a strange quality that seems both glassy and liquid at once. There is a tension between the apparent possibility of either the orbs falling through the hole in the form below, or being enveloped by the shell-like form above. This creates a feeling of excitement and wonder in the viewer, as there is a strong visual pull from both the top of the composition and the bottom. This contrasting pull holds the viewer’s eye irresistibly in the imagined space that Morin has composed.
