Dunedin Public Art Gallery curator Lauren Gutsell said the new project titled Light Interference was created by Perth artist Rebecca Baumann and explored the relationships between "colour, space and materiality".
Ms Gutsell said the gallery had a desire to fill the atrium with a project, as it was an area that rarely featured artwork.
The gallery-commissioned project consisted of two pieces, she said.
One was a coloured layer installed across the skylight and front windows of the gallery.
The second was a piece that would be displayed across the large wall left of the gallery entrance.
The skylight was covered in a dichroic film, which causes visible light to be split into distinct beams of different wavelengths and could display shades of pink, yellow, blue, purple and green depending on the angle and type of light shining through.
"The skylight and windows were the perfect place because of changes during the day depending on what the sun is doing, and it turns the foyer into a sort of atmospheric and performative space," Ms Gutsell said.
"When people come into the space the work will . . . respond."
The full installation will open on December 10.
