Patterns and Tones: Sun Shadows

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Sun Shadows

"Griffith Observatory, No. 1" 2014

Lately I have been capturing and creating what I call Sun Shadows. I have been particularly drawn to photographing shadows cast by railings and the geometric patterns they make while interacting with staircases. The steps break the bold shadows into repetitive patterns which create a lovely abstract arrangement. As I changed their color profile to greyscale, the images began to flatten out from 3 dimensional lines, into a 2 dimensional plane. If you can remove the initial recognition of the object and let the abstract shapes wash over you, you may begin to see what I mean.

The images are constructed from a form built out of a functional object. Only the change in scale and frequency of lines give the illusion of the image receding, reminiscent of the De Stijl or Neo-plasticism artistic movement that came out of the Netherlands in 1917. Although I'm sure they would have disapproved of symmetry and use of the non-primary color Orange in some of these works, I had their concepts in the back of my mind while shooting these images.

I enjoy their vision of creation using only the most simplified compositions in strong basic colors (see my love of them in "Primary Colors: A Love Affair") juxtaposed in black and white. Very clear and clean, an obvious reaction to the horrors of WWI they had just experience and a desire to get back to a harmonious and structured society.

One of my favorite things in Art is discovery. Finding a new perspective or element in a piece of work, something that takes awhile to reveal itself, is thrilling for me. As I mentioned in my earlier piece "Getting Lost In The Supermarket", figuring out the deception is as fun as a puzzle but comes in second only to the enjoyment I derive from the discovery of the deception after I have been observing the object for a period of time. I think I have successfully created a few discoveries in this series and look forward to following the sun to round this series out in the future.

The Shadow knows!

Julie Pavlowski Green
November 1, 2014