Internationally acclaimed Britain-based artist Bruce Munro recently unveiled his largest site-specific project to date: Field of Light at Sensorio, a sprawling art installation that covers a hilly, countryside landscape with more than 58,800 stemmed fiber-optic lights powered by solar energy. Located in Paso Robles, California, the illuminated composition opened to the public May 19 to mark the launch of the first phase of Sensorio, a new destination for immersive art.
Installed across a multi-acre landscape, Bruce Munro: Field of Light at Sensorio is a walk-through artwork that gently illuminates the landscape with “subtle blooms of morphing color.” Munro was inspired to create the installation after a 1992 camping tour of Australia’s red desert center, where he reflected on how different a desert looks after the rains trigger flower blooms. He sought to recreate that phenomenon with a field of lights that would only bloom after dark. His first iteration of Field of Light was created in 2004, in Wiltshire, U.K.; since then, he has been invited to temporarily recreate Field of Light around the world.
Field of Light at Sensorio is Munro’s largest-ever exhibit and his first U.S. exhibit entirely powered by solar. “Munro’s oeuvre aims to transcend time and space by inspiring moments of awareness, inviting viewers to contemplate a world larger and more mysterious than their own existence,” a press release noted. Artworks by Munro have been exhibited in permanent collections of museums around the world.
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Munro’s Field of Light epitomizes the Sensorio concept, which was created as a thought-provoking destination that explores the intersection of art, technology and nature with “amusing, mystical and kinetic experiences.” Future phases of Sensorio will include exhibits and buildings to be put into place by 2021 as well as a future hotel and conference center. Field of Light at Sensorio will remain on display until January 5, 2020.
Photography by Serena Munro
