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The hierarchy is inverted, then dissolves…

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Solidity is truth, its cast silhouette only a copy. Working with light and shade alongside their respective mediums of glass and metal, Gabrielle Adamik and Cinnamon Lee dismantle this conviction. The hierarchy is inverted, then dissolves.

Adamik’s work considers bearing witness as a form of attention. Working in panels of clear glass, recurring eyes position the works as both figures and witnesses, their encounter suggests a seeing which is shared and implicated. The shadows, louder than the object itself, act like a less stable double that exceeds the authority of the form that produces it. In this reversal, shadow is approached as an active presence.

For Lee, the shadow occupies both object and subject. Perforated metal sheet is used to trap points of light depicting imagery that echoes the innate intangibility of the shadows being cast. As light is reflected from and through the objects, the distinction between material and immaterial blurs, creating impressions that hover between apparition and artefact.

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SHADOWINGS is an attempt to capture the uncapturable: to hold light within matter, to render the impermanent through materials associated with permanence, and to give form to forces that resist being held.

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Artist Statement - Cinnamon Lee

Shadows exist in opposition to light, yet are entirely dependent upon it. Without light, there can be no shadow. Usually understood as evidence of an object’s existence—proof that something has substance—a shadow itself is elusive and ungraspable. While shadows are wedded to the objects they echo, they can be distorted. Slippery and insubstantial, shadows can also deceive. Perhaps this is why they have become so deeply entangled with human stories and beliefs, often linking them to ideas steeped in the supernatural.

In response to this, I have attempted to make ‘drawings’ in light from solid matter, exploring these ideas through the use of tiny polished spheres and faceted gems set into black perforated aluminium sheets. The aluminium provides a veil-like grid into which three-dimensional points are fixed and function as ‘pixels’, catching, reflecting and refracting light while simultaneously interrupting its passage.

The imagery trapped within these unorthodox canvases evokes the volatile forces of fire and smoke, alongside impressions suggestive of apparitions or spirits. Both are impossible to hold or contain, yet deeply embedded within the human psyche, where they linger as traces of danger, desire, fear and the unknown.

Some works have been conceived specifically with their shadows in mind, while others consider the intrinsic nature of the shadow, perhaps as its own entity. When illuminated, a further transformation occurs. Although constructed entirely from solid materials, the images themselves begin to behave like shadows: appearing and receding according to the viewer’s position, dissolving into the darkness of the grid, or projecting their presence beyond the physical object. The eye shifts between darkness and light, between the material object and the projection it produces, until the distinction between image, object and shadow becomes unstable.

This work presents a contrast to my jewellery practice, given that I am accustomed to making small precious objects for the body, intended to be held and worn. Here, I am attempting instead to capture a sense of impermanence: to give physical form to things that can only truly be apprehended through light and perception.

Materiality, however, remains central. The weight, tactility and longevity of the materials I have chosen are deliberately at odds with the transient subjects they describe. Industrially produced stainless-steel spheres, uniformly sized and highly polished, act as miniature convex mirrors, catching light and returning it as points of silver against the black grid. Crystalline zirconium dioxide—a lab-grown material developed as an alternative to diamond—possesses a remarkable capacity to refract and disperse light when faceted. The perforated aluminium provides a physically robust structure in which these materials can be secured, while remaining visually ambiguous. From a technical perspective, this work draws directly from a recurring method within my jewellery practice, where gems are trapped within their precious-metal settings. The scale of the works for SHADOWINGS, however, transforms these familiar materials in order to unsettle our perceptions of solidity and truth.

Ultimately, SHADOWINGS is an attempt to capture the uncapturable: to hold light within matter, to render the impermanent through materials associated with permanence, and to give form to forces that resist being held. The works create shadows, yet themselves become shadow-like… caught somewhere between object, image, substance and illusion.