Artist’s Statement
Working with light and shadow has been of interest to me for many years with the way objects and their shadows combine in order to create a space I refer to as “shadowfield.” For me it is a wonder, a sensation which is the result of light projected onto various tangible materials leaving shadows behind to make a rich and complex patterned field. At the same time, the result is an atmosphere, often indecipherable, moving from light to dark where there is an ambiguity between what is object and what is shadow; what is real and what is not. Perhaps this is a metaphor for the current political and social environment in which we live?
Darkness and light has been a universal construct in the visual arts, often contemplated by artists throughout history. Leonardo da Vinci proclaimed that “the beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.” In the 20th century, Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki said that “[w]e find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.”
Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.
Tanizaki, Jun Ichiro. In Praise of Shadows. Westbrook, CT: Leete’s Island Books, 1977.