Deanna Sirlin’s Watermark, a large-scale window installation, has been bringing light and color to the Crosland Tower of Georgia Tech’s library for several months. Now the Atlanta-based artist has an accompanying video installation, The Color of Healing, appearing on the campus’ outdoor Media Bridge at the Price Gilbert Library. The bridge is at the intersection of Cherry Street and Bobby Dodd Way, and the work will be shown every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. through December 15.
According to the artist, the installation reflects her “engagement with the tactility of paint, large-scale immersive works, the movement of light and color, and poetry.” Poetry because, with the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Nexus Fund, Sirlin commissioned a new work from Atlanta poet Opal Moore titled The Color of Healing as part of the collaborative video artwork.
“It’s about the curative powers of light, color and language and how they may heal the spiritual and physical wounds of the past three pandemic years,” Sirlin says. In the video, Moore’s voice and words resonate with images from the artist’s work, overlaid with abstracted movements that emulate black ink, smoke and other natural elements. A third collaborator, Lisbon-based Nuno Veiga, served as videographer and composed the work’s soundscape.
Sirlin describes the relationship between Watermark and The Color of Healing, which are next to each other on the Tech campus, by saying: “All of my work addresses color and the movement of light. Watermark fills the space with an intense color palette. Natural light falls through the windows and the exterior world is tinted with color when viewed from inside the building. Whereas the window installation shapes the viewer’s perception of the exterior world, The Color of Healing is a direct intervention into that world that creates a similar immersion in color and movement with the added dimensions of sound and poetry.”