Exploring the duality of human nature and challenging the conditioned perceptions of society, this collection of Shadow artwork works on the mind in different ways.
A Japanese artist Kumi Yamashita has this unconventional and innovative way of playing with light and shadows. She uses a single light source along with an assortment of simple objects like letters of the alphabet, children’s playing blocks and shoeprints, to create incredible shadow silhouettes and artwork on walls!
A closer look shows that the alphabet blocks have been carefully arranged in a way that each casts a particular shadow which, when taken with all the other precisely placed objects and lit from the right, cast a silhouette of a woman.
Isn’t that incredible? Here’s another example of her creativity – Origami illusion.
Each color sheet on the wall, when creased by hand and lit from the side by a single light fixture, will reveal in shadow the facial profiles.
Yamashita’s portrays how we are all connected, in spite of looking different, living different and sometimes finding it impossible to relate to one another, However, once unfolded, we share a common shape, a common source.
Light and Shadow Paintings
Another artist Rashad Alakbarov from Azerbaijan, uses everyday objects like empty plastic bottles, metal pipes and lamps, to create incredible city landscapes and portraits on walls.
The stunning light painting below, made with an array of colored airplanes –
What makes his work truly captivating are the contrasts, not only in the instance of light against shadow, but also in the opposition of chaos against beauty created from its reflection.
The artist-duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster blend the dark and light side of humanity, playing with our perceptions and conditioning, in their sculptural artwork. What appears to be a waste of modern society transforms into a self-portrait of shadows projected onto the gallery wall under directed light.
Dirty White Trash [With Gulls] – This is a unique kind of self-portrait, sculpted out of six months’ worth of the artists’ rubbish; the remains of everything they needed to survive during the time it took to make the work. A single light source illuminates the pile of rubbish thus casting a portrait in shadow, which contrasts sharply with the materials used to create it. On the wall, the shadow figure self-portraits of the artists take a break with a cigarette and a glass of wine.
Wild mood swings
Self-imposed misery – Merging form and anti-form, their art explores psychology and the way we attach meaning to images.
Sources:
Tom Noble and Sue Webster
Shadow art
Kumi Yamashita
