James Turrell

American, b. 1943. James Turrell is an American artist who exploited scientific concepts of Light and Space as the foundation for his work. He conceptualized the idea of “thinkness” of light, through which he established that light is not just as an instrument to illuminate objects, but an object itself. The impact of his educational background of perpetual psychology is profound in his artworks. During his early career, he worked with the concept of Ganzfeld Effect, which included disorienting perpetual experiments that comprise filling the entire field of vision with solid color without any contrasts to occupy the brain, leading to occasional visual blackouts and hallucinations. He is best known for his award-winning projects like the site-specific installation art under the Skyspaces series and recently, Roden Crater, where he is transforming a 400,000-year-old, 3-mile-wide (4.8 km) crater's land into an observatory which allows viewing and experiencing solar and celestial phenomena with the naked eye.