artdaily_LONDON.- This December, Daniel Benjamin Gallery presents works by Liz West and Jemma Appleby that explore the intricate relationship between architecture, light and the human responses these invoke. A luminous light installation by British artist Liz West beams through the gallery’s windows, basking the surrounding streets in vibrancy after dark and lighting up Notting Hill for a unique, immersive show.

Renowned for creating vivid and sensory environments through her manipulation of light, Liz West’s Our Spectral Vision is a large-scale installation that replicates the process of diverting white light through large-scale prisms made of dichroic glass. Exhibited on the first-floor of the gallery, visitors are encouraged to submerge themselves in the rich, saturated light that will drench the room with colour. West explains the “understanding of colour can only be realised through the presence of light”, and with Our Spectral Vision the seven visible parts of the colour spectrum will transform the gallery space into a realm of imagination and exploration.

Downstairs a series of artworks by London based artist Jemma Appleby offer new perspectives on architectural spaces and our concept of space. Appleby grinds black charcoal on paper with her bare hands in a unique creative process that allows for no mistakes. In each of her hypnotising drawings, only parts of the buildings are shown, suggesting that the architecture is not the focus point but an accessory to the protagonist of the work, the light. As Appleby herself acknowledges, the artworks “amplify each environment’s simplicity and purity with an aim of clarification. These clean minimal spaces offer little information yet have an authority to describe a magnitude.” Together Liz West’s and Jemma Appleby’s works unravel the ways in which we conceive the spaces we inhabit by heightening our awareness and experience of light. While West’s captivating work arrests attention as visitors watch the colours dance inside the colourful bands of light, Appleby’s serene drawings on the lower ground floor offer a moment of reflection, subtly reminding that light has the power to mask and reveal at its own discretion.

Liz West (b. 1985) is a British artist who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2007 and whose body of work encompasses site-specific installations, sculpture, and wall-based artwork. Liz West has been commissioned worldwide by institutions and organisations including Natural History Museum, National Trust, National Science and Media Museum, London Design Festival, Natural England, Allied London, Grosvenor, British Land, Salford University, Leftcoast, Allenheads Contemporary Arts and Bristol Biennial. West's work has been included in exhibitions with St Albans Museum + Gallery, University of Hertfordshire, Chester Cathedral, Compton Verney, Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces, Cornerhouse, Brunel University, Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre, UK Young Artists and Royal British Society of Sculptors in the UK, as well as internationally in Milan, Dubai, Paris, Berlin and New York.

Jemma Appleby (b. 1987) is a British artist and graduate of City and Guilds of London Art School. Her works have been shown in the UK, Italy, Colombia, Spain and France, and has been shown in exhibitions such as: the Summer Exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts curated by Grayson Perry; Architecture As Metaphor, alongside Phyllida Barlow, Rachel Whiteread, and Richard Deacon at the Griffin Gallery in 2017; LA.CU.NA at LAMB Arts in 2016; The Light in the World is Without a Significant Plan at Daniel Benjamin Gallery. She is the recipient of The Arts Club Prize for Finest Drawing at the National Art Competition in 2010 and The Haworth Trust Award for Painting.