Ashoke Chhabra
Prototype Chaos Floor Lamp, 2019

Reclaimed redwood, glass.

1st place winner of Leave a Light On at the Wharton Esherick Museum went to Ashoke Chhabra from Tujunga, CA for Prototype Cubist Taple Lamp, whose angular rows of reclaimed redwood and glass rise from the floor with a wonderful, chaotic rhythm. The Wharton Esherick Museum’s 26th Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition, Leave a Light On, opened September 8th in conjunction with the Museum’s Annual Members Party. Celebrating innovative approaches to lighting, the exhibition includes 13 works by artists from across the country whose explorations in the transformative nature of light embody the next generation of artistry and craftsmanship in woodworking. “For me the creative process is non-linear. It is marked by a series of failures, happy accidents, and modest victories. Occasionally the endless plodding is punctuated by the spark of an idea that alters the course of all future efforts. The work with which I am presently engaged is the result of one such moment the likes of which has embolden me with a fresh enthusiasm to the point of reinvention. I refer to my new line of work as the Chaos Series, so named for the disjointed impression one gets upon initially viewing. There is however order at play, a pattern that repeats before righting itself for the next sequence. It is this juxtaposition of the dissonant and the harmonious that perhaps lends this work its greatest visual interest.” – Ashoke Chhabra