Cyrcle Questions Reality in Glow-in-the-Dark Exhibit “NOTHING EXISTS!”

Faith, God, Science, Belief, Doubt… LA artist duo Cyrcle tests these every day philosophies in their glow-in-the-dark exhibition, “NOTHING EXISTS!”. The title points to their theme, Solipsism, a theory that asserts that nothing exists but an individual’s consciousness. It’s a grand concept tackled by concise forms, shapes and a largely monochromatic color palette. With hints of glowing green, their acrylic paintings on wood and relief sculptures feature deceivingly simplistic, spacey imagery. We recently got a behind the scenes look as they prepared for the exhibit, now on view at Station16 Gallery in Montreal. Like reality itself, the show is presented in a sort of division. In the light, it portrays the physical and our perceptions of reality as bold pictures of spacefaring figures and lunar-esque landscapes, layered with text, but as soon as they are turned off, they challenge those perceptions. Seeing, of course, is not the only determining factor to believing what is real. A scientist might make a clear distinction about what exists and assert that all objects that exist are made up of either matter or energy. In Cyrcle’s exhibit, this also includes the mythical, as in their portrait of “Father Time,” and what has yet to be determined as real, for example, the possible extrasolar planet “Gliese”. Take a look at more works from the exhibition below, courtesy of the gallery.