Photograph by Paul Myers

'A Maze Book' is one of Vincent Koloski's multimedia art pieces that all use neon lighting in some way.

Illuminated art exhibit sheds light

By Shari Kaplan

In centuries past, illuminated manuscripts were a unique melding of literature and art, exhausting a book's creator and delighting its viewer with letters, words and margins adorned by bright colors, ornamental designs or both.

In the 21st century, art and literature have changed greatly, but illumination still takes place, using methods both traditional and alternative. One example of the latter is "Illuminated Books, Illuminated Walls," a new installation by San Francisco artist Vincent "Vince" Koloski on display through Dec. 28 in the Los Gatos Museum of Art and Natural Science, located at 4 Tait Ave.

Although the museum's two galleries may at first seem dimmer than usual, that's only to allow a rainbow array of softly glowing neon to light up carved and etched acrylic slabs, which are to Koloski what canvas is to a painter.

"I work with light because of its emotional and symbolic power. Light has a primal attraction to humans," he explains in his artist's statement. "It produces their food, provides warmth and power and is a beacon of security in the night. It has a purity unmatched by any other energy or material."

Most of the light-filled works take the shape of larger-than-life books, some with sentences, others with symbols. In "Imprisoned Words," the Minnesota native uses metal bars as the "cover," encasing acrylic "pages" illumined by red, yellow and blue neon emanating from the book's "spine." On the pages are excerpts from writings by famous--or infamous--men, all of whom were imprisoned at some time. They include Adolf Hitler, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nicola Sacco, of Sacco-Vanzetti murder trial fame.

Also using primary colors is "Six Pages of Creation," a collection of glowing pages that shed light on the creation myths of more than a dozen racial, cultural and religious groups. From the Bushongo people of Zaire to the ancient Celts of the British Isles, and from the Islamic Quran to the Christian Bible, everyone explains creation with similar metaphors and symbolism.

Some pieces are more lighthearted, such as "A Counting Book" and "A Maze Book." In the former, old slide rules and rulers frame pages of equations, while the covers are fashioned with calculators and an abacus. In the latter, a jumbled Rubik's cube sits atop a book of amazing mazes.

"Making books which use light to create the images and text is a perfect marriage of the symbolic and the practical aspects of light," Koloski reveals. "The presence defined by a book-like object in which the words and images seem to float in space between the covers is one which seems to appeal to human perception in a way which bypasses the rational entirely."

Koloski's interests also lie in the enigmatic mysteries of crop circles, as evidenced by his illuminated tome "Crop Circle Book"; his full-wall installation, "Silicon Valley Crop Circle," composed solely of neon tubing; and his large color photograph, "Authorities are Baffled," of a neon installation he created in Arizona's Black Rock Desert--also home to the annual Burning Man festival.

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Los Gatos Museum of Art and Natural Science hours are Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free; a $1 donation is appreciated. For more information, call 408.354.2646.

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