Everything we are capable of seeing is an artwork that creates a rainbow. It is formed from a sprinkler system of water vapour and a light.
My interest in the rainbow was prompted by an observation Richard Dawkins makes in his 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow. In it he talks of how Keats accuses Newton (and science) of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours. Keats poem Lamia talks of how “Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings” and that it will "Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made”.
In recreating a rainbow in the dark, or in the night I reduce it to the most simple and visible elements. There is a system that creates rain or a water mist and there is a single artificial light. Everything is reduced to its most basic form and by viewing the artwork you become part of the piece. Each person sees their own individual rainbow and all of the elements are on show to enable you to understand this relationship.
For me there is a beauty in understanding the physical relationship we have with the phenomena of a rainbow. There is also a sublime realisation that the rainbow is something that entirely describes how and what we can see. The range of colours, the breadth of the spectrum in a rainbow is entirely bound by what it is possible for a human to see. Other species can see very different rainbows depending on the range of the electromagnetic spectrum they are sensitive to. A nighttime rainbow is something that describes everything we are capable of seeing.