Impalpable Shadows: MFA Degree Show Imagined at The Foundry Gallery, London, 2020
Due to the impact of Covid-19 my exhibition has been imagined and visualised at The Foundry Gallery, London. This space was chosen specifically due to the gallery's focus on exhibiting art which shows a link to architecture. Due to the small dimensions of the gallery, I have chosen to add two further imagined rooms.
My research focused on an exploration of the impact of light and shadow on and across a 1960’s Tower Block set in the middle of the Oxfordshire countryside. By recording the shapes of shadows as they formed with camera or a pen, I was able to use these harvested abstracted shapes to further explore the materiality and colour of this exterior environment.
The surfaces I created became a way to process and present the hidden elements contained within these shadow spaces. This led to further investigations into how shadow could evoke the personal. Combining the sensory elements of the spaces through my use of materiality, the pieces exhibited aim to reveal the atmosphere experienced or sensed here.
Gallery 1 – Absence
The work in this first room deals with feelings and memories around absence. Through the act of cutting or folding, elements have been extracted from these pieces helping to create voids or new spaces. The intention was to draw attention to these cut away areas, as well as to emphasise the shape of the space which surrounds them.
Gallery 2- Attachments
This second room explores attachments, with consideration given to the bonds we make with objects, people and places, both physically and emotionally. These pieces are made up of several key shadow shape sections which have been reconfigured through the act of mirroring, repetition or rotation to create a new form. Pieces are attached to each other in a way which suggests either a temporary fixing; for example with the use of plastic cable ties, which can be cut, or more permanently, with a piano hinge or rivet, suggesting a much stronger bond.
Gallery 3 - Hidden
A Constant Deep Breathing of Shadow and Light, in 4 parts. Archival card and spray paint, 2020.
These sculptural forms take the linear shadow, the outer edge or boundary of three shadow shape motifs as their starting point. Their linear shape is mirrored so an identical form is created, hinged along a central spine, allowing the form to fold outwards and inhabit the space. Lighting is crucial to how the forms and their cast shadows interact. But how do we sense these forms; do we feel safe or is there a suggestion of menace in this dimly lit space?