David Madacsi |
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A native of Youngstown, Ohio, and a long-time resident of Mystic, Connecticut, David Madacsi came to art via an academic career in the discipline of physics. His professional career as a physicist was focused on light and included the study of materials and processes for the photo-electrochemical conversion and storage of solar energy. Often intersecting with the arts, David co-founded the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point Campus in 1991; he continues to serve as its Board Chairman and Associate Curator. Additionally, he was the Producer/Artistic Director of the Jazz...by the Sea music festivalfrom 1995-2000, and served as Director of Arts and Cultural Programs at the campus until taking early retirement from the University in 2003. While he retains his academic standing as Professor of Physics Emeritus, David now pursues art—and related writing—full-time, drawing on his insight into the workings of the physical world to inform his creative work. David’s long-term interaction with other visual artists has led to an ongoing interest in the subject of “the interconnectedness of light, art, and place.” He has done extensive photographic work, written, exhibited and lectured internationally on the subject, which is the basis of a forthcoming book. David’s environmental art centers on the behavior of natural light as influenced by “visual terroir.” The phenomena of natural lensing and image formation—essential to the evolution of vision—are starting points for his site-specific installations which utilize “image-gathering” water lenses and environmental found objects. |
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Droplets The title of the installation, “Droplets,” calls attention to the importance of the condensation of water droplets as a defining feature in the continuous circulation of water between the atmosphere and the earth’s surface. That circulation is critical to maintaining the biosphere and to the survival of most life forms—including our own. The interaction of light and water is a uniquely-defining visual feature of our earthly environment. Light in nature is very likely a primal source of human aesthetic experience and is a primary source of inspiration for visual artists. Madacsi's “Droplets” installation of “image-gathering” water lenses is inspired by (and replicates on a large scale) the formation of images by water droplets in nature—perhaps the evolutionary basis of vision, and essential to our access to the “visual world.” |
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