Casting the Shadow

Here I have tried to set the shadow in latex, using the shapes that I used in the paper hanging piece. I like how as the latex has dried the paper has ripped and cracked, perhaps representing the impossibility of trying to physically constrain something so transient and fleeting as a shadow.

Experimentation: Latex

In attempt to recreate shadows in physical form I decided to experiment with materials that let light threw and others that block it so that new shadows would also be made. I have used latex as it is versatile, you can manipulate how translucent or opaque you would like it through the thickness. I like the ambiguity and interesting textures that have been made through the contrast of materials.

Experimentation: Shadow as object

Here I have tried to replicate the shadows in physical form, firstly putting the shapes into paper. I have then hung them together to create one mass. I feel that this does not evoke the intesity of a shadow and thetefore is a representation of the impossibility of preserving a shadow. By shining light on the sculpture, the shadow shapes as a collective create a new shadow displaying the evasive quality of this transcient process, throwing up new intangible, irreplacable moments.

To further experiment I would like to make these paper shapes in a different material maybe something even more man made and crude looking, to see how this attempt at re-creation makes me feel.

Uta Barth: Sundial Series

In exploring the transient movement of light I looked at Uta Barth's Sundial Series where she recorded the movement of light around her room at dusk everyday. I love the simplicity of the images and the way they beautifully evoke those last moments of light,capturing that fleeting but intense moment between light and dark.

Transcience:Shadows

Leading on from this interest in preservation, I began to think of other things or phenomena that are also impossible to capture. I have always been intrigued by light and the subtle changes of shadows, their transcience. Shadows seem to represent the dichotomy between stillness and calm, and a potential movement and change. No shadow is ever exactly the same.

I began to photograph shadows everywhere I went, collecting them, this process made me aware to the subtle changes of light that I would usually bypass. However, it began to frustrate me that although I had these images, they were merely recordings, they did not replicate the time the place or the emotion that came from that shadow. I decided that I would experiment with different materials to try and recreate the forms of light and dark and through this, inevitably, the impossibility of making a shadow something tangible.

Preservation

I have always been interested in the idea of Preservation.The piece in the Tate Britian collection that I am most drawn to, is Anya Gallacio's 'Preserve Beauty'. The irony of the piece in relation to the title is quite shocking, however I feel that the peace is subtle and beautiful a representation of the impossibility of preservation as the thousands of bright flowers have grown brow and produced a dark liquid that stains the walls of the Tate.I feel that the work is almost a monument to the inevitable failure of preservation and a human obsession with a fight against time and it is through thinking about this that I began.