Background
Helen Pashgian was born on November 7, 1934 in Pasadena, California, United States, into the family of Aram John and Margaret (Howell) Pashgian.
Helen Pashgian was born on November 7, 1934 in Pasadena, California, United States, into the family of Aram John and Margaret (Howell) Pashgian.
Helen received her Bachelor of Arts from Pomona College in 1956, then attended Columbia University from 1956 – 1957, and earned her Master of Arts from Boston University in 1958. She also pursued a Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University in preparation for a career in academia or museum work.
Helen Pashgian is a pioneer and pre-eminent member of the Light and Space artistic movement since the 1960s. Her signature forms include columns, discs, and spheres in delicate and rich coloration, often with an isolated element appearing suspended, embedded or encased within. Developed through innovative applications of industrial epoxies, plastics, and resins, Pashgian’s semi-translucent surfaces seem to filter and contain illumination. Activated by light, these sculptures resonate in form and spatiality both inner and outer.
Helen Pashgian was an artist in residence at the California Institute of Technology from 1970 - 1971. She was included in Pacific Standard Time: Cross Currents in Los Angeles Painting and Sculpture, 1950 - 1970 at The Getty Center, the related Pacific Standard Time exhibition Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface at The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and was the subject of a major solo exhibition, Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art during the spring of 2014. Helen Pashgian currently lives and works in Pasadena, California.
Quotations:
"I'm interested in the depth and the light, objects floating in a space that is not defined."
“I think of the columns as ‘presences’ in space — presences that do not reveal everything at once. One must move around to observe changes: coming and going, appearing and receding, visible and invisible — a phenomenon of constant movement. It touches on the mysterious, the place beyond which the eye cannot go.”
She is a primary member of the Light and Space art movement of the 1960s.
