Color Field

Color Field is the title of Ivan Toth Depeña’s new public art installation for West Rail Line’s Federal Center Station in Lakewood, Colorado.

Color Field, a new, permanent public art installation by artist Ivan Toth Depeña was installed May 17, 2014 at the Federal Center Station in Lakewood, Colorado, the third largest city in the Denver Metro area.

Commissioned by the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in Denver, Colorado, with assistance from the City of Lakewood, Color Field casts ever-changing patterns of color across more than 30 meters of ramps, stairs and walkways, interpreting nature’s inherent chaos and representing it as an evolving, kaleidoscopic abstraction.

Made of steel, laminated and tempered colored glass and concrete that will be back lit by LEDs at night, each of Color Fields 18 “tree-like” structures was created using software that generates form algorithmically. For Depeña, this process insured that each sculpture and glass lens is unique.

“I want the sculpture to change constantly and to have a direct relationship with the landscape and the solar system,” says Depeña. “I varied the size and positioning of the colored glass lenses and I used the varying angles of the sun throughout the calendar year as mechanisms to produce an ever-evolving experience. Color Field will not be the same in the morning as it will be in the afternoon. It will not be the same this week as it will be next month, etc… Some of my recent work has used artificial light and sensors to interpret interactive/responsive gestures and movements made by human participants to create unexpected outcomes and compositions. This sculpture is interacting with and responding directly to nature and the phenomenon of light to achieve similar results.”