Let me be perfectly honest. When I first saw Mai Snow’s installation, “Green Flash,” in the window of Space (through Feb. 19), I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

I knew I mostly liked it for its color and boldness, but it bore no resemblance to any of Snow’s previous work. The eight paintings gathered here have a graphic, flat quality to them that was unlike the multiple gossamer-like layering of color and imagery I associated with Snow.

With the possible exception of one painting, there is no suggestion of figures either, which are almost always present in their work, no matter how abstractly.

So, I called Snow up in Marfa, Texas, where they are working for a few months before returning to Maine.

During our FaceTime call, the first thing I realized is that my perception was being partially hijacked by the poem that accompanies the installation (printed on the glass nearest the door to Space):

“Circle is the Loneliest Shape”

If Circle
is the
loneliest
shape
then
earth
Must
Be a
Woman.

Let me get my jacket.

This set me off on a futile quest to correlate the poem directly to the paintings. Not all of them had circles or seemed to have anything to do with them, and feminine themes eluded me, except in one blue and pink painting titled “How to Float with Sun,” which can vaguely be read as a female torso (titles are not listed; this one was gleaned from our conversation). Further confusing this was the painter’s artist statement, which says, in part, “Snow’s work celebrates the complexities of queer sexuality, gender, and the non-binary body.”

Understandably, Snow was hesitant to explain too much, lest it inhibit viewers’ pure emotional response, or impede them from reading their own meanings into the work, which, of course, Snow welcomes. But what Snow did allow was that the series was fundamentally about light. The second they said this, the shackles on my perception popped wide open and, interestingly, the relation of the poem and the statement came into some kind of focus as well.

A green flash is an optical phenomenon that happens at sunrise and sunset. Just before it drops below the horizon or as it begins to peek above it, the sun’s upper rim appears green for a few seconds. The lower leftmost painting in the window seems to have most to do with this specific spectacle. Two other canvases – a desert-like image at the center and what resembles an abstracted seascape to its right – also appear to reference sunset or sunrise. One featuring a road implies a horizon and, because the broken line down its center continues on, the infinity beyond it.

But none of these are meant to be literal. Rather, they are more directly related to our somatic experiences of light phenomena, which are necessarily solitary, even if we happen to be with someone when they occur. The melancholy we might feel at the fleeting nature of this beauty, as well as the appreciation for having experienced it, are utterly interior. You might articulate it to someone, but only you can feel it. The same goes for the aftereffects of staring into the sun. When you close your eyes, only you see the colors and shapes behind your eyelids. The painting with the road in it seems to capture this as floaters of color that hover over the scene.

This perceptual solitude is not dissimilar to fluctuations of gender and gender identity through which anyone can move. We can feel masculine one day, feminine the next, and neither or both simultaneously. Though they might manifest in exterior ways – our stance, our voice, the way we dress – the actual felt sense of these fluctuations transpires within the body and soul.

Snow was greatly affected by her studies of color theory at Maine College of Art. Though American Color Field painters such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Morris Louis are often cited for their use of color theory in art, the first convergence of this science with art dates further back – specifically to Georges Seurat in the 19^th century. He and the chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul began experimenting with what Chevreul described as the “chromatic circle of light” (based on Isaac Newton’s color wheel). One discovery that came out of these experiments was that placing contrasting colors next to each other magnified the vibrancy of both. Another finding pointed to the way color can alter mood.

This is precisely what Snow is doing in “How to Float with Sun,” which juxtaposes pink and a specific blue they love. More broadly, all of the works use color to evoke emotions, though exactly what emotions those are will depend on the viewer (someone who dislikes blue would respond to this painting very differently than someone who loves it).

Does the circle of the poem allude to Chevreul’s chromatic circle of light or Newton’s color wheel? Does Snow’s reference in the poem to the circle being the “loneliest” shape tie back to the solitary experience of light phenomena? Is it a nod to Mother Earth or to the loneliness – read: interiority – of motherhood? All of these are possible and, in the end, irrelevant because Snow is pointing us toward something much deeper and far more personal.

The only component of “Green Flash” that did not resonate with me was a vertically oblong canvas on the upper right corner, half of which is a color abstraction and the other half a series of representational domestic scenes. These, Snow explained, inject something that is instantly relatable for any viewer, something familiar they can latch on to. Everyone can imagine sitting at a dining table, lying on a bed or picnicking outdoors. Yet the presence of these I found jarring because they disrupt the intangible, sensate depths into which Snow has plunged us through the use of pure color and ambiguous form.

Instead, we are yanked to the surface again – myself, unwillingly – into the realm of the quotidian. It also feels dystonic with the overall unity of the installation. When I held a hand up to block these out of my visual field, everything held together harmoniously and as an intact whole. I also noticed that my interior experience immediately shifted to one of peace, balance and relaxation. Though I can tell you that, of course, only I can feel it. It’s better to visit “Green Flash” any time of day or night and feel into how it uniquely impacts you.

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland. He can be reached at: jorge@jsarango.com 

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