October 10 - November 10, 2025
It isn’t the how that draws you in. Even if these color-saturated, luminous sculptures do boggle the brain – there is something beyond how that challenges our perception, pulls us in, makes us step closer, look deeper.
Each small, seven-inch sphere calls us to fall into it, to see something more that must be hidden within its deep colors. There is something enigmatic in the curved column of shaded turquoise within deep turquoise that casts shadow and shape. Something unexpected in the cubed tunnel of clear transparent material that provides a window into the core of a brilliant orange piece.
The darkly lit and rippled square wall pieces offer impossible windows which seem to glow from within. Some contain what appear like rips within darkly luminous surfaces which reveal glowing, flickering yellow cores. Another seems to ripple light and shadow in complex waves like water or fire.
As a key member of the Light & Space movement, Helen Pashgian’s sculpture explores the possibilities of light, color and volume, using materials from cutting edge technology. The resins that she uses came out of labs exploring new chemical materials to be used in aerospace and industry. Pashgian pushed the limits and stretched the boundaries of these materials –using them in ways that the scientists themselves had never conceived. Having studied the unique discoveries of the Dutch Golden Age masters in depicting light while in graduate school, Pashgian set about pioneering her own techniques to capture and explore color and light.
But perhaps it is Pashgian’s early experiences on the shores of the Pacific in California, exploring tide pools filled with strange and colorful creatures, rippling with cast light and shadow as a breeze activated their surfaces, that was the more foundational influence. Here were worlds of color and volume, light and movement. Here was something that flickered just on the edge of knowing.
The resulting sculptures of Pashgian’s explorations are small paradoxes. Somehow dense and ethereal at once. Both luminous and shadowed, merging science and art, solid and yet always changing with the shifts of ambient light and perspective. We are moved and fascinated, mystified and enlightened by turns. We are there, in the moment, experiencing wonder.
And this somehow provides the key to why Pashgian’s sculptures entrance. The writer Joseph Campbell once said, “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
We bend toward these pieces, eyes and brains not sure what exactly is occurring, yet knowing there is a mystery at the heart of this experience, body and emotions responding with recognition. This is Helen Pashgian’s gift to the viewer – an experience that crystalizes attention to the moment.
- Michaela Kahn, PhD
Untitled, 2010
industrial epoxy
12 x 12 x 1.5 in.
HP0081
Click to inquire about this work
Untitled, 2010
industrial epoxy
12 x 12 x 1.5 in.
HP0083
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Untitled, 2023
epoxy & cast acrylic
7 in. diameter
HP0079
Click to inquire about this work
Untitled, 2021
epoxy & cast acrylic
6.5 in. diameter
HP0046
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Untitled, 2022
epoxy & cast acrylic
6.5 in. in diameter
HP0051
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$40,000
$40,000
Untitled, 2021
epoxy & cast acrylic
6.5 in. diameter
HP0044
Click to inquire about this work
$100,000
Untitled, 2023
epoxy & cast acrylic
7 in. diameter
HP080
Click to inquire about this work
$100,000
Untitled, 1980 polyester resin on canvas 18 x 18 x 1.75 in.
HP0084
Click to inquire about this work
$100,000
Untitled, 2010
industrial epoxy 12 x 12 x 1.5 in.
HP0082
Click to inquire about this work
$100,000
$100,000
$95,000
$40,000
Born: 1934 in Pasadena, CA
Lives and works in Pasadena, CA
Education:
1958 M.F.A., Boston University, Boston, MA
1957 Columbia University, New York, NY
1956 B.F.A., Pomona College, Claremont, CA
Residencies:
1970 California Institute of Technology
Honors and Distinctions:
2022 Honoree, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Art + Film Gala
2013 Distinguished Women in the Arts Award, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, CA
1995 Hall of Fame, John Muir High School, Pasadena, CA
1986 National Endowment of the Arts, Individual Artists Grant
Selected Solo Exhibition:
2025 Helen Pashgian, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
2024 Lumen: Helen Pashgian, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA
2021-22 Helen Pashgian: Presences, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
2021 Helen Pashgian: Spheres, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
Helen Pashgian: Spheres and Lenses, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
Helen Pashgian: Primavera, Benton Museum at Pomona College, Claremont, CA
2019 Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong, China
Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea
New Lenses and Spheres, Vito Schnabel Projects, St. Mortiz, Switzerland
Charlotte Jackson, Santa Fe, NM
2016 Golden Ratio, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2014 Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA
2011 Columns and Wall Sculptures, ACE Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA
2010 Working in Light, Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA
Royale Projects, Indian Wells, CA
2009 New Works, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
2007 Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA
2006 Patricia Faure Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1997 Estelle Malka Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1992 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1991 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1990 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1989 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1988 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1987 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1986 Works Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1983 Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1981 Stell Polaris Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1976 University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
1971 Kornblee Gallery, New York, NY
1969 Kornblee Gallery, New York, NY
Publications:
2022 Nipper, Marie, et al. Light + Space. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Contemporary; Berlin: Light Art Space (LAS) and Buchhandlung Walther Koenig.
2021 Yau, John. Helen Pashgian. Spheres and Lenses. Santa Fe: Radius Books.
2018 Lauson, Cliff, Dawna Schuld, Lynn Zelevansky, et al. Space Shifters. London: Hayward Gallery Publishing.
2017 Howe, Kathleen Stewart, Matthew Thomas Simms, and David Totah. Transient. New York: Totah.
2014 Eliel, Carol S. Helen Pashgian. Munchen: Prestel Verlag.
2010 Hickey, Dave. Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970. New York: Steidl/David Zwirner. Howe, Kathleen Stewart, Helen Pashgian, and James Turrell.
Helen Pashgian: Working in Light. Claremont: Pomona College Museum of Art.
1979 Museum of Contemporary Art. Permutations: Light and Color. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey.
1975 Pashgian, Helen, and Melinda Wortz. Helen Pashgian. Irvine: University of California.
1971 Baxter Art Gallery, and California Institute of Technology. Artists in Residence: Alexander, Bassler, Elder, Pashgian. Pasadena: California Institute of Technology.
Selected Public Collections:
Agnew Miller & Carlson, Los Angeles, CA
Atlantic Richfield Company, Dallas, TX
Andrew Dickson White Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Bank of America, Los Angeles, CA
Bank of America, Singapore
Frederick Weisman Collection, Los Angeles, CA
Koll Corporation, Newport, CA
Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA
Nestle Corporation, Glendale, CA
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA
Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Progressive Savings, Los Angeles, CA
River Forest State Bank, River Forest, IL
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Seattle First National Bank, Seattle, WA
UCI Institute and Museum for California Art, Irvine, CA
Walker Associates Inc., Los Angeles, CA
