Pinecrest Gardens blooms at night with Bruce Munro in ‘Forest and Field of Light’

Village of Pinecrest and Pinecrest Gardens treats visitors to Bruce Munro: Forest and Field of Light, an extraordinary large-scale, site-specific light installation by acclaimed British artist Bruce Munro from Dec. 4, 2021 – June 26, 2022. The exhibition is scheduled to open during Art Basel Miami and will be included in its event programming. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at pinecrestgardens.org.

Bruce Munro: Forest and Field of Light features more than 6,000 fiber-optic illuminated stemmed glass spheres that cascade across nearly two acres of Pinecrest Gardens and are inspired by the venue’s unique landscape and vegetation. “The beauty of this exhibit, set on a botanical stage, will bring our intimate gardens to life at night, as well as provide a breathtaking and otherworldly experience for anyone who attends,” said Alana Perez, Pinecrest Gardens’ executive director. “This is the first time we are opening up our Lower Garden, with its tropical, jungle-like winding paths, for visitors to experience an exhibit unlike any other in South Florida.”

Installation highlights include Field of Light,which will greet visitors as they walk along a garden path around a banyan tree up to Lakeview Terrace. This most iconic vista at Pinecrest Gardens will be enhanced by gently-changing colored waves of light. Deep in the Lower Garden, guests will further find a winding, exotic tropical Forest of Light. Visitors can stroll through a serene and enchanting pathway surrounded by illuminated stems, adding a new dimension to the Gardens’ Cypress Slough, Hardwood Hammock and natural rainforest. Immersed in tropical splendor, the illumination will be reflected in streams that surround Turtle Island.

Bruce Munro has worked in the medium of light since the 1980s and was one of the earliest adherents to isolate light and its qualities as a main focus for expression. Field of Light is Munro’s most iconic expression of this idea. The artwork began as a simple sketchbook notation, made during a life-affirming 1992 travel experience the artist shared with his then fiancée, now wife in Australia, at its sacred center Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) monolith. The artist dreamed of a field of lights that would bloom under night skies, like the desert after a rain. Life and family then intervened and he was unable to execute the artwork until 2004, when it was immediately recognized as emotionally significant, not only for Munro but for others. Subsequent iterations began to be commissioned in places and spaces across the world: England, Scotland, Denmark, Mexico, Korea, Australia itself and in multiple locations across the United States.

Pinecrest Gardens will be the artist’s first opportunity to create outdoor artwork for a tropical forest setting. And, because of the diversity of Pinecrest’s landscape and plant collections, Munro thought to create a second iteration for the field surrounding Swan Lake, creating a second vista of the artwork and its reflected image in the water. “Every exhibition venue is unique and I am delighted to be invited to exhibit my work at Pinecrest Gardens,” Munro said. “For me, light is a medium of expression and conduit to share thoughts, feelings and life experiences with others. I hope this exhibition will inspire a little bit of hope and joy to everyone who visits these beautiful gardens.

According to Forbes, which describes Field of Light as “the future of public wellness,” Munro’s work ‘is famous for creating deep emotional responses from the viewer.” The Los Angeles Times has called Munro’s work “mesmerizing,” while The Guardian noted, “This is art you feel, rather than art you view.” The Huffington Post said, “It can be hard to describe in words the gifts that Munro bestows on the landscape as his work escapes description in either written or photographic form, it is something to be experienced.” Theoretical physicist/Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek noted in The Wall Street Journal, “I had the uncanny sense that I was walking through my own mind…in the ever-changing landscape of possibilities, I felt I’d gotten an inkling of what thought looks like.”

WHAT:       Bruce Munro: Forest and Field of Light 

WHEN:       Exhibit runs from Dec. 4, 2021 – June 26, 2022: 

TIMES: 

6 p.m. – 9 p.m. from Dec. 4. – Mar. 12

7 p.m. – 10 p.m. from Mar. 13 – Jun 26 

*Closed to public for private receptions on Dec. 8 & 18

WHERE:     Pinecrest Gardens, 11000 Red Road

                    Pinecrest, FL 33156 

TICKETS:   $20 per adult, $15 per child. Purchase tickets online at pinecrestgardens.org.