Like most of Shechet’s outdoor sculptures, Dawn is painted in two colors: in this case, matte peach and glossy lilac, with contrasting swaths of aluminum left unpainted. Despite this minimal palette, the work seems to contain a diverse spectrum of hues which shift moment-to-moment as light and shadow move across the surface of the work. Shechet describes this phenomenon, saying “within each work there is a palette that is two shifting colors, not contrasting, but shifting colors, as if a natural event had occurred that made the colors shift from one to the other, a little dash of sunlight, a cloudy day, something that happened.”

Each of Shechet’s outdoor works contain both matte and glossy surfaces, which reflect and absorb the landscape so that no two views are the same. They change with the light and the weather, but they also change as the viewer moves around the work. For the artist, “sculpture is always about movement and the body,” and Shechet’s works encourage visitors to approach them from different angles to observe how their palette transforms in an ever-changing environment. Dawn’s palette resonates with another constructed metal sculpture nearby, Study in Arcs by David Smith, a rare example of pale pink nestled in the landscape, which Shechet was delighted to discover while visiting Storm King.