John Opera's "When the Sun is Done" at Rivalry Projects

Exhibition Dates:
January 17 - February 28, 2025

Opening Reception:
Friday, January 17, 2025, 5:00-9:00pm

Artist Talk & Publication Release:
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 6:00-7:30pm

Rivalry Projects is located at 106 College Street, Buffalo, NY 14201.

Contact: info@rivalryprojects.com | 716-217-2923

"When the Sun is Done meditates on the threshold between visibility and vanishing, drawing inspiration from philosopher Jean-François Lyotard’s notion of “solar collapse”—the eventual dissolution of the sun’s energy and the cosmic shifts that follow. Here, diffraction patterns and portraits are presented side by side, evoking a realm where light slips beyond control and images dissolve into something more uncertain. Yet despite this darker conceptual framework, the works radiate a sense of vitality and visual warmth, resisting a purely pessimistic reading of entropy and change.

At the heart of the exhibition are montaged images of diffraction patterns, captured through custom-built photographic apparatus, shot on film, and printed using the gum bichromate process on canvas. This method imparts a painterly tactility and material presence to each image. These intricate visual fields, formed as light interacts with physical obstacles, suggest a universe in flux. Alongside them are a series of new portraits that share similar fractal rhythms, indicating that human identity can be refracted and remade in tandem with cosmic phenomena. Some of the works’ titles carry autobiographical references, serving as personal anchors amid cosmic speculation.

Together, the pieces in When the Sun is Done create an environment where subject, light, and matter continuously meld and separate. Viewers are invited to acknowledge the delicacy and interconnectedness of being while encountering a brightness that transcends the initial premise of collapse. In this space, uncertainty becomes a source of imaginative possibility."

Originally published at:

https://www.rivalryprojects.com/john-opera-when-the-sun-is-done

"WHEN THE SUN IS DONE: New work from John Opera at Rivalry Projects"

• Meagan Walker Doxtad, Executive Editor, Buffalo Spree
• Published online, Jan 3, 2025, at https://www.buffalospree.com/arts_entertainment/on_view/when-the-sun-is-done/article_f34fc576-c0c9-11ef-a7a5-1787f2242460.html