I climb up the stairs of St Albans Museum to the Assembly Room. I’ve come to have a look at Liz West’s art installation Our Colour Reflection. As I turn a corner and step into the room, I’m dazzled by a sea of colour. There are more than 750 round mirrors made of brightly coloured acrylic reflecting light and projecting colour onto the historic interior of the Assembly Room.

The arrangement of mirrored disks held above the floor at various heights on perspex stands creates depth and dimension, almost filling the entire floor, bending and softening the straight architectural lines of the Georgian interior and letting in an abundance of light.

The convex and concave surfaces and varying diameters of the disks play with and question our sensory perceptions so that the room is not only animated with colour but as a viewer I become part of a dynamic illumination reflected through space. Drawn in by the fluorescent tints, I stop to stare and catch myself momentarily daydreaming as they shine like giant rainbow dewdrops that have settled onto the ground.

As I walk around it I can see the sparkling crystal chandeliers and huge sash windows reflected and refracted in the disks. It’s amazing how the luminous mix of colour utilises natural light and I get a completely different perspective depending on where I stand.

The quality of the Assembly Room’s natural light has shifted into a chameleon-like reflection of saturated colour.

Liz West graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2007; her installations are designed to complement and dramatise their surrounding space, thereby creating a symbiotic relationship with that specific site.

This installation was first shown in 2016 at the Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe, in a former Victorian Church. Speaking of her work, West says: "The work changes constantly, depending on what time of day it is. As darkness comes, the gallery spotlights reflect off the coloured mirrors and send vivid dots of colour up into the interior of the former church building, illuminating the neo-Gothic architecture."

There is undoubtedly a sense that the artist is celebrating and drawing inspiration from medieval colours in stained glass windows, to explore light and create a vibrant kaleidoscope. I’d love to see more of West’s work. Inspired by Isaac Newton’s optics and Josef Alber’s colour theories, I find her work has an intuitive sense of movement, and even playfulness.

This exhibition has been a fully immersive experience, encouraging me to think about colour psychology and how colour has often been used to affect our mood and heighten our sensory awareness.

If it is the role of the contemporary artist to have an impact on the viewers, to engage us on many levels and even lose ourselves in the work, West has certainly achieved this. While wandering around her installation I have marveled, questioned, reflected, and interpreted reality a little differently.

  • Marisa Laycock moved from south west London to St Albans in 2000. She enjoys sharing her experiences of living in the city.