The Violet Flash, Crescent Tree Gallery, 2023

At the moment the sun falls below the horizon, our atmosphere acts as prism and lens, causing an optical effect which appears as a green or blue flash. While these two-second flashes occur at every sunset, their near non-discernibility to the naked eye makes this rarely visible event fall into the realm of fantasy and magic. More rarely, when a blue flash combines with a very red sky it creates a light purple or violet flash.

In The Violet Flash, Croskery presents seven site specific paintings which relate to this fleeting visual effect. While watching the sunset is a durational even filled with beauty and symbolism, in the end we watch it for that one magical moment when the sun falls below the horizon. These paintings, worked quickly and without fuss, draw their energy at the last minute, with the success of the painting relying on Croskery’s slow, pointed details. Formally important, these details pave the way for the artist’s slow process of figuring out the significance of a particular painting, both personally and as it related to a moment in time. For each work, Croskery writes text to further this discovery as well as aid in titling her works, giving the viewer a more complete view of the artist’s process.