The recurring focus of Amanda Means’s artistic practice has been an attempt to capture the light and energy inherent to her subjects, from flowers and leaves to light bulbs. Means shot each light bulb in her “Color Polaroid” series, to which Light Bulb 00010C and Light Bulb 00050C belong, with a 20 x 24–inch large-format Polaroid camera, one of only five the company produced. By turning her camera on industrial light bulbs, she renders metaphysical subjects of light and energy conventional and accessible, while retaining the ethereal and self-generative aesthetic that characterized her early work with natural materials. 

Label from The Swindle: Art Between Seeing and Believing, May 26–October 28, 2018