Opening Reception – Anahita (Ani) Bradberry: Spectral Field

Spectral Field is a newly commissioned plasma sculpture installation by Austin-based artist Anahita (Ani) Bradberry that investigates the mindset required to imagine the unfathomable: the baffling cosmic scales of stars, time, particles, displacement, loss, and interconnectedness. The exhibition seeks to offer an atmosphere of contemplation and lucidity, observing the moment when an idea that seems too vast is transformed into a visceral and comprehensible feeling.

In choreography with the cycle of the sun and moon through the gallery, the work is both a constructed celestial environment rooted in place and time as well as a psychological space for communing with the ineffable. Visitors are invited to spend time with the work, from the day to evening hours, to watch and consider the passage of time.

The installation will include aspects of Bradberry’s collaboration with scientist Christopher M. Johns-Krull, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, as part of the Open Interval Cohort—a collaborative program for artists, scientists, and art organizations—awarded by the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society and Culture division.

Spectral Field will be on view through November 8, 2025. Gallery Hours are Thursdays – Saturdays, 2–8 pm. Admission is free.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Anahita (Ani) Bradberry (b. 1993, New Haven, CT) is an Iranian-American artist and writer creating sculptural situations with plasma light. She earned an MA in Art History from American University (Washington, DC), conducting primary research in Tokyo with the help of a Mellon Grant and lecturing on her research at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. She later assisted in the archival projects at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art as a Research Assistant. In 2024, the City of Austin and the Trail Conservancy commissioned the monumental Sun Poem through the TEMPO Public Art Program: a year-long installation at the historic Seaholm Water Intake Facility landmark in downtown Austin. Bradberry’s work has been included in exhibitions at ArtSpring Lichtkunstfest (Berlin), Dominique Gallery (LA), Two Six Eight Bowery (NYC), the Washington Project for the Arts (DC), Transformer (DC), VisArts (VA), the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (DC), George Washington University’s Gallery 102 (DC) and CICA the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea), Blaffer Art Museum (Houston) and in Austin at Big Medium, Women & Their Work, Co-Lab Projects, and MASS Gallery.