The shadow, archetype of our darker self, is the unconscious counterpart of the positive image of the subject
Through creativity, there is an attempt or an almost conscious need to manifest distinct feelings that are part of our inner being. This expression represents the conflict that is yet to be resolved in a never-ending inner tension towards polarization. The result is something like an internal organization of opposites.
In this respect the shadow, archetype of our darker self (or our ‘Junghian’ demon), is the unconscious counterpart of the positive image of the subject, almost in compensatory relationship with the more formal and clear appearance of the subject.
It is the place that refers to our conflictive, hidden, subdued, frightened, mad, or unaccepted nature.
The natural state of a shadow is silence, removed from consciousness. Akin to a photographic negative, it is almost a ‘double’ that maintains its destructive charge until it takes form in our consciousness. In the creative act, the artist looks beyond light in order to access the most hidden part of self, in a quest to illuminate its next incarnation. In searching for the hidden self, in reconciliation with its demon, opposites attract one another.
In the absence of light, the photographer suggests symptoms without diagnosis. Characters are given voice in their silence, and share stories whose plots reflect the photographer as well themselves. In the shadows, the photographer finds drapes behind which they may hide or be revealed, creates places within this absence of light, and suggests possible scenarios, solutions, and disintegrations, all of them powerfully belonging to themselves. The shadow reflects and absorbs, simultaneously present and absent, nonetheless less precious. At last, it accompanies us out of silence to add something to what we can only seem to be.
