The Paradox
“A Lamp of Darkness” begins with a paradox: a lamp is usually associated with clarity, yet this work is built around what light cannot fully reveal. From the first encounter, the piece draws the viewer toward its interior through a structure that reveals and conceals at the same time.
Its vertical structure can suggest a body, a tower, a vessel, or a ritual object. The form rises from an open base supported by branches and linear elements that cross, bind, and tighten through dark bands. Fibers, fragments, and irregular surfaces gather inside it; among them, a narrow, lighter form appears, partially covered by the woven structure.
The work preserves the marks of its making. The roughness of the embarro, the cuts, the joins, and the accumulations of material remain visible. In some places, the elements seem to have been adjusted directly onto the structure; in others, the fibers separate and let light through. The surface has something of skin and something of a wall.
On one side, a black textile interrupts the transparency of the piece. It is fastened to the frame and covers part of the open interior. Its presence darkens one specific area of the work, while the rest remains open enough to reveal the joins, fibers, and fragments.
The Embarro
The work is made with mixed media on embarro. Embarro is a traditional building method made from local earth and fibers, used in different regions of the Caribbean and Latin America. Its resistance allows it to respond to ground movement, including earthquakes and tremors.
In “A Lamp of Darkness,” this material creates a direct relationship with the earth and with older ways of building shelter. The embarro remains visible in the earthen color, the visual weight, and the broken texture of the surface. The fibers are embedded in the mass and also appear loose in the open areas of the structure.
The embarro also creates a tension between fragility and permanence. Its fibers appear exposed, broken, or irregular, while the structure holds its position and its bindings support the volume. The result preserves something of the construction process, as though the piece still showed the moment when its parts were brought together.
The Butzina de-Qardinuta
The piece indirectly refers to the Butzina de-Qardinuta, the so-called “lamp of darkness” in the Kabbalistic tradition. The reference offers a way to consider a force that produces form through its limits, an energy that becomes perceptible when it meets resistance.
In the piece, darkness appears through the black textile, the cavities in the frame, and the areas where the material interrupts the view. It occupies the space between one fiber and another, the interior that can only be seen in fragments, and the section covered by the fabric.
The eye enters through the open spaces and encounters layers, interruptions, and remnants. From one angle, the textile comes into view; from another, the woven fibers and the central form. The piece changes with the viewer’s position because each side reveals a different part of its construction.
Darkness takes part in that construction. It reduces visibility, separates one part from another, and asks the viewer to reconstruct the interior from clues.
The piece leaves its interpretation open. Each viewer must complete what the structure reveals only in part.
Numerology appears in the work as a way of considering the relationship between dimensions, proportion, and structure. The lamp has precise limits: a height, a base, side arms, and an interior space.
The height and the area of the base define a slender figure, taller than it is wide, whose volume opens toward the sides. The side arms extend the perimeter, while the textile occupies only part of that field. The joins and open spaces give rhythm to a structure that depends as much on what it holds as on the spaces it leaves free.
In this sense, the numbers and dimensions can be read as a way of containing the material. The structure turns irregular elements into an organized presence and gives darkness a recognizable body.
Between Calculation and Accident
“A Lamp of Darkness” exists between calculation and accident, between construction and transformation. Its proportions support a form that seems to have emerged from materials difficult to control.
Identity and the Limits of Existence
Identity also needs limits in order to exist. The form of the lamp results from a selection: some branches remain outside, while others cross one another; some fibers adhere to the structure, while others hang suspended inside. Construction turns chaos into a presence that can remain in the world. The piece is interested in the moment when form still seems to exist between shadow, matter, and possibility.
The earth, fibers, black textile, and open structure form a body that seems to have survived an earlier force. Its cuts, bindings, and exposed areas preserve the marks of a transformation that remains visible, on its way toward eternity.
The piece measures 36 inches high by 24 inches wide and 24 inches deep. It is currently part of the artist’s private collection.
Its title describes an operation: turning darkness into matter, giving it a limit, and allowing it to remain visible. The lamp holds that darkness within a universe composed 95% of dark matter and dark energy.[1]
SOURCES: [1] The ΛCDM model is the standard cosmological model.
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