Since Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb in 1880, the primary purpose of electric light has been to illuminate. That was until artist James Turrell came around, subverting light and sculpting it with shape and color to yield unexpected results. After winning a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 1984, Turrell’s work has toured through 29 countries and become an obsession of rapper Kanye West—but for a new generation (like me), his work is being discovered on Pinterest and Instagram. Nail artists are also taking note, moving his work from the bulb to the nail bed.

California-based nail artist Danielle Salvoski, who mostly creates custom press-ons, says “Turrell uses the architecture of buildings and shapes that create shadows, depth, and contrast.” She sees nail art inspired by Turrell as a natural progression of last summer’s aura nail trend (which she also Turrell influence). However, it wasn’t until a client sent her a Pinterest mood board of twenty Turrell pieces that she created a set of her own.

Working first on her iPad (then picking up her brushes and polish), Salvoski mimicked pieces like Skyspace Lech (2018) by pulling colors of violet, blue, and pink to mimic organic shapes and capture Turrell’s found light. “I wanted to do something that was outside the box, but was also very directly inspired by James Turrell,” Salvoski says. The result was a masterpiece of texture, dimension, and 3-D work that took around nine hours to create from conception to delivery.

Light isn’t just something that Turrell explores in his artistic work—it’s also an integral part of his personal faith. A practicing Quaker, Turell’s religion sees light as a “connotation of a transcendent power (as a euphemism for Christ or God) or with the connotation of immanent intentionality (which others might understand as prayer),” writes Dr. Helen Meads in her book The Quaker Meaning of Light (and James Turrell’s work).

Light is transformation in nail art as well. The photoinitiators in gel polish absorb UV light to harden and consecrate its final form. Daron Wood, a nail technician from Vancouver, BC, speculates the popularity of the Turrell-inspired nail design is due to the unassuming ease to do.

“His art translates well for nail art mostly for how simple it actually is,” Wood shares. “It’s also a design that can fit on generally any size or shape of nails and works in pretty much any color scheme so it’s somewhat universal.”

The endless customizations can be done with an airbrush (Wood’s preferred method), hand-painted, or with gel. Her personal favorite color combinations are a bit unexpected: teal and red; army green and pink; blue and orange—basically, variations on complementary colors.

To create the color-fading gradients, the process goes like this: airbrush a gradient, pop nail under the UV light to cure, apply stencil, airbrush different gradient, cure, peel, topcoat, and cure, voilá. “It’s quite simple but looks very dynamic,” Wood says. She also sells stencils online, however, a similar effect can be done with tape or stickers to achieve crisp lines.

The intersection between art and nail art is nothing new—portraits of Mona Lisa, a panorama of Monet’s Water Gardens—yet Woods says there has been growing tension between the two mediums, a certain gendered disrespect as one is considered high-brow and the other less than.

“As photoshoots and advertisements become more nail focused, I finally see nail art getting more respect, but often still under the tone of ‘wow this is actually art.’ In reality, even what a lot of walk-in shops are creating takes artistic skill and attention to detail,” she says.

In reality, nail art has been evolving as a craft that actively challenges and disrupts patriarchal notions of nail art as purely decorative, not real art. And for some, it’s also been a way to be and find the light, just as Turrell would want.