​Christian Sampson Art Installation Gifted To Ringling College

SARASOTA, FL — A group of Ringling College of Art and Design supporters has gifted the college Christian Sampson’s installation “Vita in Motu” (2019).

The work was created for the Sarasota Art Museum’s inaugural exhibition, “Color. Theory. & (b/w)” and is currently on view in the museum’s third-floor Jonathan McCague Arcade.

In keeping with Sampson’s site responsive practice, “Vita in Motu” incorporates the building’s architecture with the rotation of the sun throughout the day, creating an immersive experience in which colors change and melt away as the day progresses, according to a news release from the college.

“We are incredibly grateful to this special group of donors for their generosity, which allows us to retain and continue to exhibit this one-of-a-kind, site-specific work at the museum,” said Dr. Larry Thompson, president of the college. “We’re thrilled that this extraordinary installation will remain a part of Ringling College and will continue to inspire and excite generations of students and Sarasota community members.”

The museum’s executive director, Virginia Shearer, called the piece “a beautiful, resonant reminder to be present as the day unfolds.”

She added, “We are pleased to offer our visitors at Sarasota Art Museum the chance to bask in the work's colors throughout each day. I especially enjoy watching our visitors explore the piece trying to figure out how it works and how their interactions can affect the light projections.”

Based in Los Angeles, Sampson holds a BFA from Ringling College and an MFA from Hunter College. He works with both tangible and intangible materials – Plexiglas, polymers, wood, dyes, light, reflection and shadow – to explore space and perception, the college said.

His works are often site-specific, uniquely responding to the architectural spaces in which they reside. “Vita in Motu” takes inspiration from Sampson’s childhood experiences growing up on the West Coast of Florida.

“From an early age, the play of light and color on the water and in the skies shaped my imagination. The sunsets of the West Coast are so beautiful and dramatic, and it really gives one a sense of their place in the universe,” Sampson told Ringling College.

Constructed with dichroic film, acrylic and glass, Vita in Motu builds on the artist’s deep interest in 18th-century “American Sublime” landscape painting, as well as his decades-long practice of experimenting with paint, color, reflection and projection of light in his work.