Flash Focus: Tom Lloyd
Discover fresh perspectives on art, technology, and creative collaboration through an afternoon of rapid-fire talks and unexpected connections.
Inspired by Tom Lloyd’s pioneering work with light and electronics, hear from artists, technologists, conservators, and art historians as they share eight-minute presentations exploring the ideas, innovations, and collaborations that shaped Lloyd's practice—and continue to shape the intersections of art and technology today.
Flash Focus is a new Frye Art Museum series featuring big ideas in bite-sized portions. Presented in conjunction with Tech Atelier, this edition is part of the closing weekend celebration of Tom Lloyd.
Tech Atelier is a new Frye affinity group for people passionate about where art and technology meet. Bringing together patrons, artists, technologists, creative entrepreneurs, and other curious minds, Tech Atelier explores the intersections of art, technology, and craft through historical and contemporary creative practice.
Presenting Lineup
Connie Choi: Placing Tom Lloyd in Art History
AJ Epstein: Before Tom Lloyd: Thomas Wilfred and Light Art
Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn: Making with Light Today
Reinhard Bek: Creating and Engineering an Artwork: Tom Lloyd and Alan Sussman
Samantha Yun Wall & Doug Carmean: An Artist & Technologist Collaborating Today
About the Presenters
Connie Choi is Vice President for Art and Education & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Formerly Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, she organized the exhibition Tom Lloyd, advancing new scholarship on the artist’s work and legacy. Previously Assistant Curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum, Choi is an art historian with degrees from Columbia, Harvard, and Yale.
AJ Epstein is a visual and performance artist who works with light, people, time, and space. He is the proprietor of West of Lenin, an innovative black box performance and arts venue in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. Together with his uncle, Dr. Eugene Epstein, he rescues, preserves, and evangelizes the Lumia works of Thomas Wilfred, the pioneering artist and inventor widely regarded as the father of light art.
Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn is a Seattle-based artist, industrial designer, and principal of Studio1Thousand, specializing in bespoke LED art installations, complex architectural lighting, and custom physical fabrication. Holding a master's degree in industrial design from Pratt Institute, he bridges traditional craftsmanship with cutting-edge engineering—utilizing parametric modeling, physical prototyping, and precise digital fabrication to craft dynamic, large-scale spatial experiences. Carrying forward a family legacy of public art and sculpture, his work includes projects for the Seattle Asian Art Museum, Chase Center, the Museum of the City of New York, and the University of Chicago.
Reinhard Bek is a partner at bek&frohnert LLC, a New York-based contemporary art conservation practice specializing in conservation and technical art history. As lead conservator for the Tom Lloyd exhibition, he researched Lloyd’s materials, fabrication techniques, and collaborations while conserving the artist’s pioneering light sculptures. Previously, Bek led the conservation department at Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland and was a conservation research fellow at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Doug Carmean is an avid art collector, painter, and technologist whose work sits at the intersection of art and emerging technology. Over a 40-year career as an Intel Fellow, Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, and Director of Research Science at Meta Reality Labs, he helped advance computing, optics, and creative technologies, including co-creating Meta's ART and Expansive Thinking program. Today, as co-founder and lead artist-technologist at xispa, he collaborates with artists to transform technical possibilities into creative tools and collaborative frameworks.
Samantha Yun Wall is a Korean American artist based in Portland, OR whose drawings and mixed-media works explore the psychological and emotional dimensions of transcultural identity, emphasizing the feminine perspectives of diasporic experience. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, and the Frye Art Museum. As the inaugural artist-in-residence at xispa, she is investigating nanoparticle ink and other emerging technologies to expand the possibilities of drawing and storytelling through visible and invisible layers.
Tom Lloyd is organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem. Major support for Tom Lloyd provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support provided by the Holly Peterson Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
The Frye Art Museum's presentation is organized by Tamar Benzikry, Director and Curator of Learning and Engagement. Generous support provided by Dr. Vittorio Gallo, Exhibitions Circle supporters, and Frye members. Media sponsorship provided by Cascade PBS.
Our work is supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.
Flash Focus: Tom Lloyd
Installation view of Tom Lloyd, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, May 16–September 20, 2026. Photo: Jueqian Fang
September 19, 2026
4–5:30 pm
704 Terry Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104