BLOOM, 2026

Steel, ionized steel, LED Therapy lights, paint
16 x 10'

Bloom reflects on decorative surfaces operate as shifting indicators of desirability, metamorphosis, and threat.; how the movement of bodies, plants, and decorative forms overlap; and how aesthetics and empire are materially and historically entangled. By merging motifs of transformation, adornment, and the natural world with industrial materials, Bloom presents a lineage of surface metamorphosis on how ornament has encoded bodies, objects, and environments over time.

The structure’s patterned surface originates from a loose drawing of a garden composed of plants once imported to the United States for ornamental use and later classified as invasive. Through an intensive beading process, this imagery becomes abstracted into a camouflage-like field. Within the structure, an LED therapy light—an object that promises transformation of the skin, body, and psyche—casts shifting shadows, reflections, and chromatic distortions that continuously alter the legibility of the surface. Functioning as both enclosure and interface, the greenhouse becomes a portal: a double-sided screen, threshold, and spotlight composed of thousands of small reflections and movements. Rather than presenting surface as stable or fully knowable, the work foregrounds its capacity to evade and unsettle perception—shimmering, vibrating, and oscillating between revelation and concealment.

Photos by Pat Garcia.