UHart’s Joseloff Gallery Presents “Interdimensional Timelines”

The opening reception for the exhibit will be held in the Joseloff Gallery on Thursday, March 5, from 5-7 p.m. A free and public Artist Talk will be held on Wednesday, March 25, from 5-6:30 p.m., in Auerbach Auditorium, Hillyer Hall.

Liz Nielsen's luminous, analog works, sometimes referred to as "light paintings," range from small to large. They show that captured wavelengths on light-sensitive polyester material suspends time. The photogram method has evolved from the early days of 19th-century photography (which comes from Greek roots meaning "drawing with light"), when pioneers like Anna Atkins produced "photogenic drawings" that recorded the branching of plant stems or whorls of lace.

Nielsen takes this a step further with her research into light-specifically, the empirical effects of thought and emotion to the split spectrum of single-colored wavelengths. Nielsen must work in a pitch-black environment. Tiny bits of light are blinked out systematically, making sometimes hundreds of exposures on giant sheets of light-sensitive film. The images are then processed through traditional color chemistry.

Nielsen's work has many references to moons, engulfed in colors of red, orange, yellow, and blue. Although Nielsen has used these images in previous series, recently they have become portraits, highlighting and attributed to both materiality of new life or death.

The dialogue between art and science has become a core element of the artist's practice, as they explore the intersection of these two worlds, where boundaries blur and new possibilities emerge. Drawing from quantum physics and non-linear time, the artist folds abstractions into multiple dimensions.

The artist notes: "Not only is the universe expanding, it is also accelerating. We are riding the asymptote, an upward or downward roller coaster always approaching infinity, and yet we never arrive. This quest for infinity, a belief that energy is never ceasing to exist, but transforming, shifting timelines of inter-dimensionality."

Nielsen, who is based in New York's Hudson Valley, is a Distinguished Chair in the photography department of HAS for the 2025-2026 academic year.

The exhibition and associated programming are made possible by the Georgette and Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair Fund held by Hartford Art School Endowment, Inc.