For centuries, artists have turned to light, not just to illuminate, but to express something beyond the visible. From the divine radiance of medieval iconography to the atmospheric dissolves of Turner and Monet, light has acted as both a symbol and a sensation. In the 20th century, it became material. James Turrell, Dan Flavin, and others used light itself as sculptural form, stripping away representation in favour of direct experience.

Erik Swahn’s Soma enters this lineage through another dimension, one coded rather than carved. Here, light doesn’t fall across a surface; it emanates from within. These works aren’t lit, they are light. Born from generative systems, they move and breathe with a rhythm that feels less programmed than composed.

The intense chromatic bursts in Soma are partly a continuation of Erik Swahn’s ongoing engagement with colour and abstraction, as seen in Fields (2023). At the same time, they mark a departure from the controlled geometries of earlier works like Farbteiler (2021), Punktwelt (2022), and Funktor (2023). In *Soma8 (Greek for "body"), both form and colour have dissolved into their smallest particles - a fine chromatic dust. In their place are nebulous clouds in a state of becoming, suggestive rather than representational. These formations evoke both the anatomic and the atomic, as well as vast celestial structures, merging the language of the micro and macro into a shared visual field.