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Fertility of the Shadow
7 Dec 2022 - 14 Jan 2023
Private View: 6th Dec 2022 6-9pm
Open by appointment
Book here
Title based on Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, who speaks about the importance of shadows in Japanese architecture. He approaches the traditional Japanese home as a container of light and shadow.
“The quality that we call beauty, however, must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows towards beauty’s ends.”
With this body of work we explore the fertility of the shadow, what is contained in our shadows, and the shadow as a place of dwelling & memory. If we think about the body as a container for light and shadow, wholeness only comes from the embrace of both. In western & religious thought we are encouraged to discard the idea of our shadow, a place of things and memories unwanted. In basic physics we learn that a shadow is formed when light is met with an opaque surface. In colour theory we learn that dark or black objects absorb light rather than reflect it. Using these principals we can conclude that light and shadow cannot exist without one another. If we think about light as something that illuminates the present, then perhaps the shadow is a space of that past.
In Toni Morrison's Beloved, she uses the term rememory, alluding towards memories from the past forgotten. These can be the things often lurking in our shadows. We often underestimate how much these memories form our current states of being, or how history dictates our navigation of the present. When we look closely at how shadows are formed, light is presented from the front and a shadow is cast behind: the shadow always has an origin point and is always directly connected to the objects it’s projecting.
Fertility of the shadow invites us to explore the memories and richness of our shadows as a way of understanding our past/present/future.
Sun Ra - The Shadow of Tomorrow (1974)
Today is the shadow of tomorrow
Today is the present future of yesterday
Yesterday is the shadow of today.
The darkness of the past is yesterday.
And the light of the past is yesterday.
The days of yesterday are all numbered and summed in the word “once”;
Because “once upon a time there was a yesterday.”
Yesterday belongs to the dead,
Because the dead belongs to the past
The past is yesterday.
Hamed Maiye (b. 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist based in London. He explores themes revolving around memory, magic, visual archiving & magical realism; using various materials which question language, painting & image making. Maiye explores cultural anthropology through the use of mythology, Yoruba philosophy, historical documentation & archiving which influence the production of his work. Maiye's work presents viewers with allegorical scenarios used to invoke introspection, emotional reflections & forged/false memories.
Previous exhibitions include:-
Open Studio - Block 336, London (2020)
An Ode to AfroSurrealism - Horniman Museum, London (2021)
‘10’ - PM/AM, London (2021)
Old Friends/New Friends - Collective ending (2021)
Issue 01 - Dada gallery, London (2022)
‘17’ - PM/AM, London (2022)
Exhibition images
Installation View
A Portrait of the Past, a Seed for the Future, 2022
Oil, acrylic, oil pastel, spray paint, air brush on cotton
110 x 180 cm
Invisible man, after Rinehart, 2022
Oil, Oil stick, acrylic, spray paint, air brush on linen
80 x 140 cm
Shadows of the future, 2022
Oil, Oil stick, acrylic, spray paint, air brush on linen
80 x 140 cm
For my past, For my Beloved, 2022
Oil, Oil stick, acrylic, spray paint, air brush on linen
80 x 120 cm
Fertile Ground 01, 2022
Oil, spray paint, air brush on cotton
70 x 100 cm
Fertile Ground 02, 2022
Oil, spray paint, air brush on cotton
70 x 100 cm
Evangelising - a history revised, 2022
Spray paint, air brush on reclaimed bible
Hamed Maiye & Marta Klara
Rites Of Passage, 2022
Reclaimed wedding dress, archival glue, spray paint
110 x 155 cm