Transcending the traditional boundaries of art, this immersive exhibition invites us to embark on a multisensory journey through the interplay of music, light, and visual arts. Multimedia artist Anne Patterson and composer Patrick Harlin, who first met at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key in 2014, have united for their most ambitious collaborative endeavor to create an awe-inspiring communal experience.
Transcending the traditional boundaries of art, this immersive exhibition invites us to embark on a multisensory journey through the interplay of music, light, and visual arts. Multimedia artist Anne Patterson and composer Patrick Harlin, who first met at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key in 2014, have united for their most ambitious collaborative endeavor to create an awe-inspiring communal experience.
At the heart of this evocative installation is the interplay between art and music: Patterson’s sculptures, paintings, and interactive installation and Harlin’s original composition Earthrise (2022). Patterson and Harlin create a shared experience where visual art and music merge under an imagined vast expanse of stars. Harlin’s orchestral piece was inspired by the eponymous photograph of Earth taken from Apollo 8 by William Anders in 1968.
At the heart of this evocative installation is the interplay between art and music: Patterson’s sculptures, paintings, and interactive installation and Harlin’s original composition Earthrise (2022). Patterson and Harlin create a shared experience where visual art and music merge under an imagined vast expanse of stars. Harlin’s orchestral piece was inspired by the eponymous photograph of Earth taken from Apollo 8 by William Anders in 1968.
This iconic image was a catalyst that not only shifted humanity’s perspective but also encapsulated the environmental movement’s call to care for the planet, provoking a kind of “collective epiphany.” Drawing inspiration from this pivotal historical moment and from the seismic mental shift kindled by an encounter with an image, Patterson and Harlin aim to instill wonder and reverence in us as visitors through the immersive experience of The Truth of the Night Sky.
Stepping into the exhibition, we immediately delve into a dimly lit space enveloped in deep blue, evoking the vastness of the universe. Like a prelude, The Truth of the Night Sky, an abstract sculpture made of piano wires and a steel plate, greets us, seemingly piercing through its surroundings like a multitude of shooting stars. Guided by the ethereal glow of the theatrical lighting and by the music, we step further into the adjacent galleries.
This experiential exhibition that combines the elements of concert hall, museum, and theater is divided into two parts. The first, in the Tom & Sherry Koski and Lois & David Stulberg Galleries, consists of The Weeping Tree (2024) and multiple serial works by Patterson: We Are All Stardust (2019-24), Star Spinning Through Spring (2018-24), and Celestial Orbs (202324). Her sculptures are paired with three short
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orchestral excerpts from Harlin’s music. Each step reveals a new tableau. Harlin’s musical pieces, like processionals, are carefully calibrated with theatrical lighting, overseen by lighting designer Seth Reiser, and accompany us sequentially as we pass through the galleries. In the second part in the John & Charlotte Suhler Gallery, the exhibition culminates in Patterson’s signature installation with cascading ribbons, entitled Beyond Here (2024), which is accompanied by abstract video images synchronized to the full 20-minute composition Earthrise.
As Patterson’s synesthetic vision and Harlin’s visual music converge here, we are invited to take an imagined intergalactic journey, simulating a walk through the cosmos, losing ourselves in the ephemeral beauty that surrounds us, and collectively experiencing a sense of possibility, unity, and hope.
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From Earth to Stars: A Multisensory Exploration of the Cosmos
Tom & Sherry Koski Gallery and Lois & David Stulberg Gallery
“The viewer will witness the wonderment of the universe and nature that surrounds us and be remindedthatonlywhenitisdarkcanweseethe stars.” – Anne Patterson
StarsSpinningThroughSpring
Five sculptures from the Star Spinning Through Spring series evoke the graceful, enchanting dance of stars or meteor showers. Accompanying the series is Harlin’s orchestral piece titled Starburst, an elaboration drawn from Earthrise and featuring all string harmonics. Each string player is treated as an individual so that the collective sound simulates the distinctness of countless stars. Expanding our sense of expansive space, Harlin made the audio resonate as if in a reverberant cathedral. Harlin states, “When I saw Anne’s sculptures, I knew I had to expand on an idea I came up with for Earthrise. I echoed the visual structural principle of Patterson’s works, which are divided in the middle and jut outward at the top and bottom. I had my music do the same—flipping and playing backward when it meets in the middle. You can easily hear this
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moment when the music goes silent for a second before performing in reverse.”
WeepingTree
Patterson’s WeepingTree, a majestic assembly of driftwood suspended midair, anchors the space and commands our attention. Appearing bereft of life, it exudes a haunting sense of stillness and sorrow. As Patterson explains, “The WeepingTree represents the earth element of the exhibition. As it weeps its gold and copper leaves, the tree reminds us of the dichotomy of nature: it dies and is reborn, it is both strong and extremely fragile.” The musical excerpt titled TheLighthouse creates a ‘lighthouse effect,’ a new orchestral technique
Harlin developed for Earthrise: orchestral players change notes as the conductor’s hand passes their position on stage. This is an elaboration on the moment in Earthrise when we first witness the Earth floating over the moon’s horizon. As Harlin explains, “Awe is a complex emotion, ranging from wonder to fear to veneration, all while overwhelming our senses. This Lighthouse is the ‘collective epiphany’ moment in Earthrise.” This dramatic and vast excerpt lasts nearly twice as long as the original orchestral version. Beneath The WeepingTree are abstract paintings from Patterson’s We Are All Stardust series, beckoning poetically with their celestial allure and inviting contemplation of our cosmic origins.
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Celestial Orbs
Continuing our journey, we encounter glittering, astral sculptural works from Patterson’s Celestial Orbs series, which immerse us once again in a cosmic space. The series was inspired by Patterson’s synesthetic response, seeing shapes when hearing Harlin’s Earthrise. Each work resembles a complex drawing in three dimensions using wires, simultaneously evoking constellations and rhythmic musical movements. All are named after musical terms, including Accelerando (a gradual increase in tempo), Harmonics (a sound wave that has a frequency that is an integer multiple of a fundamental tone), and Tremolo (a wavering effect in a musical tone). “Making these sculptures was pure joy for me. I manipulated and shaped the wire, actually dancing to the music and with my materials as my partner in rhythm to Patrick’s music,” Patterson says. Accompanying the Celestial Orbs series is the orchestral excerpt titled DriftingthroughTimeandSpace. A direct quote from the orchestral work, Harlin’s music evokes the icy, lonely, and awe-inspiring ambience we would experience traveling far from Earth amongst the celestial bodies.
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Beyond Here
John & Charlotte Suhler Gallery
“Aswewanderthroughtheribbonsimmersedina worldofcolor,light,andmusic,wearereminded that oftentimes we must lose ourselves to find ourselves.” – Anne Patterson
The pinnacle of The Truth of the Night Sky is Beyond Here, Patterson’s signature installation made with thousands of ribbons cascading from above, a work inspired by and in collaboration with Harlin’s Earthrise. While the first part of the exhibition evokes the icy weightlessness of outer space and a sense of isolation and solitude in the vastness of the universe, Beyond Here creates the opposite sensations—uplift and exhilaration. Disorienting with their optical illusions and mesmerizing display of colors, the ribbons create the illusion of dissolving the boundaries of the gallery walls, beckoning us to plunge into the colorful abyss. Dynamic video projections of abstract imagery, designed by Patterson’s collaborator and video designer, Adam Larsen, dance across the space while synchronized to the full 20-minute orchestral music of Harlin’s Earthrise. Together, they transform ordinary ribbon surfaces into canvases for the interplay between light and color.
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The rainbow-like 23 colors Patterson selected for the ribbons were inspired by images from the James Webb Space Telescope of the Ring Nebula. The nebula displays fiery shades of red and orange in its inner regions, transitioning to yellow, blue, and purple in the outer realm, and the installation subtly references that image, again inviting us to be transported through time and space. The gallery walls dissipate into a boundless expanse enveloped in darkness, where the ribbons, music, and projections encourage us to imaginatively explore the space between and through the threads of colors and flickering lights.
Through this immersive experience of The Truth of the Night Sky, Patterson and Harlin invite us to delve into the infinite expanse of the cosmos, collectively experiencing astonishment, a sense of possibility, wonderment, unity, and hope.
Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D.
Senior Curator, Sarasota Art Museum
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About Earthrise
by Patrick Harlin
There is a sense of awe in looking at the night sky, sensing the vastness of the universe and the improbability of reaching the moon, let alone our closest stars. If you are one of the 24 humans to date to have taken the 240,000-mile trip, the excitement of skyward travel was accompanied by the violence of exiting Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational pull. As you escaped, you were at the mercy of your equipment and environment, floating. Perhaps you had the feeling that many who take the trip have—we are a speck in the universe, orbiting an otherwise unremarkable star; everything you love was back on that tiny blue marble.
In 1968, the groundbreaking Apollo 8 mission had two firsts; they ventured outside of Earth’s gravitational field, and they took the first trip around the moon. Astronauts William Anders, James Lovell, and Frank Borman were tasked with surveying the dark side of the moon. Anders remarked, “Nobody asked me to take a picture of Earth, I didn’t think about it either.” In a twist of fate, as the three astronauts orbited the moon for a third time, their lunar module rotated ever so slightly, bringing the earth into view above the barren horizon of the moon. Anders (recorded on tape) is audibly moved and scrambles to load color film into his camera and snap what became one
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of the most important photos of the 20th century, now known as “Earthrise.”
Of Earth, Lovell remarked, “You don’t see cities, you don’t see boundaries, you don’t see countries, you don’t see people, it looks like the place is uninhabited.” Borman opined, “What they should have sent was poets, because I don’t think we captured in its entirety the grandeur of what we had seen … It’s only when you get into the deeper space that you experience the total immersion in the heavens.” Anders reflected, “When I looked at Earth on the way back and had a little time to be more contemplative … it got me thinking really for the first time, that we are just a small piece of an almost infinite universe.”
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About Anne Patterson
Anne Patterson is known for her large-scale immersive installations, creating a transcendental experience of awe and wonderment for her audience as they interact with the massive forms. Suspended high above the viewer from the public heights of cathedrals, commercial towers, gallery or museum ceilings, Patterson’s hypnotic installations create multisensory environments to explore. In every instance, the work challenges perceptions and transforms space with vivid hues, dazzling light, and a mesmerizing, inviting air of transcendence and uplift. Her artistic practice as a whole includes watercolor paintings and sculpture, which frequently explore themes of multiplicity similar to her larger-scale works.
Patterson is a graduate of Yale University (B.A., Architecture) and the Slade School of Art, London (M.F.A., Theater Design). Her work has been widely exhibited and collected in dozens of galleries, museums, and cultural institutions, including exhibitions at The Ringling Museum (Sarasota, FL) and Trapholt Museum (Denmark). Her installations have hung in Grace Cathedral (San Francisco, CA), St. John the Divine (New York, NY), in Milan in collaboration with Zenga, and she recently installed a permanent piece for Capital One Bank in Washington, DC. Her theatrical partnerships
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have included major venues across the United States: Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, The Wilma Theater, The Kennedy Center, Alliance Theater, and prestigious symphonies throughout the country (San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). She is the recipient of multiple CODA awards as well as a Creative Capital Award in 2008. She is a longtime Fellow of the Hermitage Artist Retreat and recently served as a juror for the Hermitage Greenfield Prize in Visual Art.
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About Patrick Harlin
PatrickHarlin’s“aestheticscaptureasenseof tradition and innovation.” – The New York Times
Patrick Harlin’s music is permeated by classical, jazz, and electronic traditions, all underpinned with a love and respect for the great outdoors. His works have been performed on subscription series concerts by the St. Louis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, the Rochester and Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras, and Reno Philharmonics, ROCO Houston, and countless others. Recent album releases include the Billboard charttopping WildernessAnthology on the Kinetic Ensembles debut album and Rapture on the Grammy-nominated album AmericanRapture by the Rochester Philharmonic. Harlin was the inaugural composer in residence with Michigan’s Lansing Symphony Orchestra (2019-2023) and the inaugural winner of the Hermitage Prize in Composition at the Aspen Music Festival. While at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key, Harlin and Patterson met. They have been collaborating since including on works The Art of Flight with Patterson’s art installation Murmuration.
Harlin’s interdisciplinary research in soundscape ecology—a field that aims to better understand ecosystems through sound—has taken him to
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imperiled regions around the world, including the Amazon rainforest and the Book Cliffs of Utah. His baseline recordings for ecological impact studies are also the fodder for artistic inspiration. His works draw parallels between the sounds of the natural world and those of the concert hall, seeking to bring awareness to the importance of sound in our environment. Most recently, he wrote a piano concerto for Van Cliburn finalist Clayton Stephenson for piano, looping pedal, and orchestra. Harlin holds a doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan. He currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he teaches at the University of Michigan.
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Credits
Artist: Anne Patterson
Studio Assistant: Kina Park
Lighting Designer: Seth Reiser
Projection Designer: Adam Larsen
Composer: Patrick Harlin
Earthrise
Recording: Beethoven Academy Orchestra, Poland
Conductor: Yaniv Segal
Recording Engineer: Bartek Staniak
Scan to hear Earthrise
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TheTruthoftheNightSky:AnnePattersonand Patrick Harlin is organized by Sarasota Art Museum in collaboration with the Hermitage Artist Retreat, and curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator, Sarasota Art Museum.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, with generous support from:
Shari and John Hicks
Anonymous
Sondra and Gerald Biller
Carole Crosby and Larry Wickless Dean Eisner
Marge and Leon Ellin
Judy and Fred Fiala Russel Herz
Keith Monda and Veronica Brady
John and Charlotte Suhler
Janis and Hobart Swan
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