Reflections

@Fried Contemporary Art Gallery

The artworks comprise of figures constructed by light and shadow. It engages with Carl Gustav Jungs’ concepts of the latter; which he proposes the shadow to symbolize subconscious inferiorities. This reflects one’s repressed shortcomings and weaknesses which can be partially or entirely hidden by the subconscious. This type of negative connotation of the shadow has reared itself throughout time, conveniently based in the shadows description as being the absence of light.

According to Roy Sorensen (2008), when one is faced with a silhouette one is inevitably seeing the actual object and in more truth, seeing the furthest side of the object from oneself as this is the surface that is blocking the light and revealing the silhouette. Whereas a shadow is instead a cast impression of the original object, therefore if one sees a shadow one cannot say that one has seen the object itself, but rather the effect of the object.

In the artworks, parts of the figure’s shadows play on the visual nuance of silhouette. As I create the impression of silhouettes in the form of shadow I question the ability to strictly separate oneself from ones so called “dark side”. Jung theorises that the suppressed human nature may infiltrate and reveal itself in the conscious mind, as the amalgamation of silhouette and shadow suggest that the effects of our actions are in fact a fleeting but inevitably true reflection of the whole.

- Sorensen, R (2008) Seeing Dark Tings: The Philosophy of Shadows. Oxford: Oxford University press.

Exhibited at Fried Contemporary, 3 solos including Alex Hamilton ‘Almost everyone in Pretoria’, Rozan Cochrane ‘Reflection’ and Sungmee Bae ‘Water reflection and me’

Photos by Mayuri Ramkolowan.