Image: Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham
The Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington, has opened ‘Luminous Glow: The Neon Landscapes of Kelsey Fernkopf,’ an immersive exhibition centered on large-scale neon sculptures and a new installation made for the museum’s Lightcatcher gallery. The exhibition runs from July 11, 2026, through March 7, 2027, and includes photographs by Fernkopf’s longtime friend and collaborator, Steve Gilbert.
Fernkopf, a Seattle-based artist and master neon-glass tube bender, has spent decades working with the medium. The museum describes the exhibition as his largest solo presentation to date. In the Lightcatcher gallery, he has composed an interior landscape of luminous forms that appears to shift as visitors move through the space, with changing viewpoints producing different spatial relationships among the sculptures.
The installation explores neon not only as a source of illumination but also as a sculptural material. Fernkopf uses line and color to frame architectural and natural environments, examining how light can alter perception. The museum characterizes the resulting experience as one that invites reflection and meditative calm, while the exhibition announcement emphasizes its immersive quality and the way the work changes as viewers move around it.
Gilbert’s photographs extend that investigation beyond the gallery. Created in collaboration with Fernkopf, the images document temporary interventions in natural and urban settings, placing the artist’s portal-like neon sculptures within dramatic outdoor landscapes. The photographs address the relationship between fragility and permanence, craft and concept, and gesture and environment.
Originally from Kansas, Fernkopf earned a degree in sculpture and has made a living bending neon in sign shops across the Pacific Northwest since 1987. The Whatcom Museum’s exhibition page says that the closures during the COVID-19 pandemic gave him time and space to expand his art practice and develop his neon sculpture in new directions. He has worked with Tami Landis and the Corning Museum of Glass at the Seattle Art Fair, exhibited with Foster/White Gallery in Seattle, and currently has work in the Tacoma Art Museum group exhibition ‘Haunted,’ scheduled through June 2026. He also works at Noble Neon when he is not in his studio.
The Whatcom Museum presents itself as both a community institution and a regional destination, with programming rooted in art, nature, and Northwest history. Founded in 1941, it operates galleries at the Lightcatcher building and Old City Hall, alongside educational programs, collections, and family activities. ‘Luminous Glow’ is on view at The Lightcatcher, with the museum’s regular galleries and store open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The exhibition is sponsored by Patti Imhof and Ashley Kimberley and remains on view through March 7, 2027.
