Luminous: A Dialogue in Art and Color
Windsor Art Center
Windsor
Nov. 16, 2025
The wind was howling fiercely, turning a brief shower into slashing rain as I stepped out of an Uber. Today was my first time visiting the Windsor Art Center, an unassuming, squat brick building caught between an apartment complex and the train tracks. The wet chill began to set in, and I found myself wishing for a blanket to wrap myself up in.
The art center had quilts, but not for use. Its latest exhibit, titled Luminous: A Dialogue in Art and Color, takes the novel approach of combining quilt making and glass painting to create a striking gallery that explodes with color.
The Luminous exhibit is the first time I recall seeing quilts in a gallery. Artist and quiltmaker Alexandra Wahl’s work is stunningly intricate in its designs, with details that reveal the skill of an artisan that has been making quilts since she was 9 years old.
When I entered the gallery, the first piece my eyes went to was the interestingly titled Warm Goose Chase. Despite the heavy use of black and darker shades of reds, pinks and purples, Wahl’s quilt explodes with light thanks to the judicious use of white, both as a color and as empty space within the diamonds. The use of triangles gives the quilt a sense of movement as well. In her artist’s statement, Wahl explained that she “revels in the simple beauty that can be achieved with nothing more than color and shape.” Her expert use of both in Warm Goose Chase is apparent.
Eddie Hall’s approach to art is similar in style but very different in substance, namely the materials he uses. Hall uses recycled windows to represent “the geometry of the world around us, [and] the shapes that define our environment.” Whereas Wahl’s quilts produce light, Hall’s reflects it, requiring a special balance of the acrylic paint he uses so that he can illustrate his vision without smothering the reflective qualities of the glass.
His piece titled Retinopathy shows how he pulls off the balance. Close inspection of the piece reveals layered application of paint, but Hall is careful to include pale blues and whites that allow light to bounce back to the viewer. It makes his work seem as if it's internally lit. Like Wahl, he also used lines and angled shapes to draw the eyes of the viewer to different places in the work. In Retinopathy, he simultaneously pulls the viewer towards the red circle in the center with sharp quadrilaterals and triangle, then pushes them away with the blue rays that extend out in the opposite direction. That pull and push creates a tension I’ve rarely experienced in visual art.
Finding a new gallery to visit is always a wonderful surprise for me. My visit to Windsor Art Center was doubly fruitful thanks to the unique nature of their latest exhibition. I’m excited to see what they will have in the future.
NEXT
Luminous: A Dialogue in Art and Color runs through Jan. 3.
Jamil runs to the theater to check out the running man remake.
