Michelle Gearin, Double Rainbow, 2022. Mixed media. Courtesy: the artist and The Lock-Up, Newcastle.

Pre-Socratic philosophers theorised that the human’s ability to see was due to “the fire that comes from the eye”, an idea that eyes emit visual fire streams that, when combined with daylight, enable a person to visualise their environment.

The Lock-Up presents works by Newcastle-based artist Michelle Gearin in a solo exhibition DOUBLE RAINBOW, which responds to the power of the human eye and the science of optics. As an autistic artist, Gearin’s newly commissioned work reflects on the complexity of the eyes as a major component of the artist’s relationship with the world around her.

Pushing her practice into new experimental mediums, including installation, video and sound, Gearin’s work explores the primal human experience of connection and communication through eye contact and the behavioural properties of perceived light. Her work explores the meteorological phenomenon caused by the reflection, refraction, and dispersion of light within water droplets, known as a rainbow. Occasionally, light reflects through these droplets twice, creating a second arc of reversed colours. For Gearin, this reflected universe symbolises the way she lives in the world and takes in and processes stimuli.

Opening Event: Saturday 10 December, 5.30PM

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