2.5. — 24.5.2026

FIAT LUX presents Laura Lowe’s latest Structural Colour Paintings, based on observations of melting ice made with polarised light microscopy during the Ars Bioarctica residency at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station. Polarisation reveals colour spectra in the ice crystals, allowing the otherwise invisible structures and their change to be seen. The works exhibited mimic the transparencies, reflectivities and structural colours formed within melting ice. The series continues the artist’s earlier investigations into the colour of oil slicks and coal.
Lowe’s process is near alchemical in nature: the immaterial-seeming colours of her paintings emerge like in a prism, as light refracts through translucent layers of paint. She chemically manipulates different paints, embedding her layers with reflective or crystal-forming materials such as salts, shiny pigments, glass and metal powders.

Her practice merges the traditional layering technique of the Old Master painting with an attempt to understand colour from a scientific perspective. Light and colour have fascinated artists since the time of cave painting. In Lowe’s work, however, this interest in the dialogue between light and surface has deepened from a technical enquiry into the thematic core of the work: how energy transforms inanimate matter into something living. All life on Earth originates from this intertwining of sunlight and matter. The event of Lowe’s paintings is, above all, an encounter between the immaterial and the material —spirit and body— the process through which life comes into being.
Lowe’s paintings undergo this metamorphosis in a way that the viewer can observe almost as if it were a scientific experiment. They challenge the traditional notion of paintings as ‘nature morte’ a still or lifeless moment. Colour appears and disappears as the viewer moves past, shifting with light, shadow and reflection. The seemingly liquid mirror-polished surface immerse the viewer into this kaleidoscopic landscape, alluding to our participation in the cycle of life and death.

The exhibition is accompanied by an introductory essay written by art critic Sanna Lipponen.

Laura Lowe (s.1991 Vantaa) is an emerging oil painter working with the iridescent colour spectra found in oil slicks and coal seams. Rather than using pigment, Lowe’s Structural Colour Paintings produce colour by building up layers of translucent paint, which bend and refract light like a prism. Her practice is informed by laboratory experimentation and an alchemical interest in the interplay of light and matter.

Lowe trained at Factum Arte & Factum Foundation, Madrid before completing her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki, during which she won the Hotel GLO Art competition and her MFA degree show was awarded the Anita Snellman award. Lowe’s work has been exhibited at Galleria Paperihuone, Hämeenlinna ‘22; Galleria Rajatila, Tampere ‘23; B-galleria, Turku ‘24, and Huuto galleria, Helsinki ‘25. Lowe is currently working with a two-year working grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation on an upcoming solo show “Fiat Lux”, Forum Box ‘26, as well as group shows for Madrid and Oulu.