[photo credit: Cynthia Minet Art]
The show, titled “Prey,” runs through Jan. 3, 2027, in the gallery’s five street-facing windows at 80 N. Raymond Ave. at Holly Street, across from the Pasadena Senior Center. Light Bringer Project reopened the windows in summer 2026 after a restoration carried out with the building’s homeowners association.
Minet works in recycled and repurposed plastics lit from within by light-emitting diodes, materials she has used since 2010, the organization said. The installation is built around five life-size huskies, joined by a smaller puppy and three trophy heads made from fragments of other sculptures. One of the heads, a camel, was made for the 24-Hour Gallery years ago.
“I am inspired by the product design of detergent bottles, vintage iMac parts and plastic toys, and I am also drawn to the way translucent plastic transmits and manipulates lighting effects,” Minet said.
She sculpted animals, she said, after seeing a parallel between the domestication of animals for human use and people’s own habituation to plastic products. The lighting, she said, is meant to draw attention to a dependence on plastics and on an electrified modern world.
“While not specifically telling a story, I hope that viewers recognize the contrast between the inanimate animal heads, fixed in place as trophy heads are, and the running or sleeping dogs as actively alive; the double meaning of the show’s title Prey,” Minet said.
The windows are not new to her work. Minet showed “Unsustainable Creatures III” at the 24-Hour Gallery in 2010. Light Bringer Project began exhibiting in the Raymond Avenue display cases after closing its Metro Gallery in 2006, putting contemporary art in front of passers-by on the sidewalk.
A second Minet piece is on view elsewhere in the city. “Unsustainable Creatures: Elephant,” a life-size illuminated sculpture in the Pasadena Convention Center’s Conference Center lobby, is part of the city’s Rotating Public Art Series IV, and its run has been extended through May 2027, Light Bringer Project said. A third installation, “Jacked,” built around a life-size illuminated lioness, will be on view at the Adams Square Mini-Gas Station in Glendale from January 2027 through March 2027 under the Glendale Temporary Public Art Program.
Light Bringer Project, founded in 1990, also produces the Pasadena Chalk Festival, the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade and ArtNight Pasadena.
