Niki de Saint PhalleLights

Among the final works of Saint Phalle's career, Ω / Omega was created in 2001 in collaboration with artist Pierre Marie Lejeune. It's one of her most cosmologically charged pieces. The monumental toroidal form — nearly seven feet tall and constructed in mirrored glass, inlaid glass, corten steel, and an integrated electric light — distills the full iconographic vocabulary of her late practice into a grand, luminous whole. Across its mosaic surface, Saint Phalle's signature cast of creatures animate the composition: birds and serpents, flowers and faces, a crescent moon. The work's title invokes the last letter of the Greek alphabet, signaling not an ending but a culmination or resolution. A summation of the mythic, matriarchal world Saint Phalle spent decades constructing. It's the punctuation mark to a storied career.