In our last Kick-About, Jawlensky’s Girl with the Green Face challenged us with its bold colours and enigmatic expression. This week’s prompt, “In Praise of Shadows,” invites us to notice the quieter qualities of shade and atmosphere. As always, the works that follow were made in a short time—and for all previous editions of The Kick-About, go here.
Gary Thorne
“The use of contrast between black and a rather lush mustard yarn, ended up not delivering a sense of Tanizaki’s love for patina of time-passing nor beauty in form shifting as it merges into a dark recess. Instead it seems to present what a friend says is a ‘cocoon of bees’. I’ll happily settle for the buzz Scarlett got from it.”
Phil Gomm
“I was away in France two weeks ago in an old house that always inspires me to channel my inner ‘spirit photographer’, hoping to create and/or capture some kind of phantasmagoria with my camera. This KA prompt saw me thinking about how I could manifest a shadowy apparition in the looking glass of the old wardrobe in one of the big rooms upstairs. I was thinking about ‘Candyman’ and all the urban legends like it, in which you stand before a mirror and say the name of someone three times—not praising them exactly, but close—in the hope/fear that they will appear in the mirror as summoned. I created a very simple ‘silhouette’ out of cardboard and three black plastic tablecloths and then suspended the ad-hoc figure from a beam on a length of black elastic.
“That done (with the whole set-up looking very unpromising, I must say!), I then went about taking long exposures of the silhouette as I pushed and pinged it about, seeking to produce some suitably shadowy effects. As you may imagine, there were many photographs taken during this process in which nothing transformative happened at all (just some sweaty bloke in a very hot room shoving a crude figure about and hoping for the best), but there were others in which something rather more ‘unheimlich’ resulted…”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
Graeme Daly
“I’d had these videos and pictures kept for a while and knew I wanted to do something with them. Defeated, because I couldn’t find them anywhere, I gave one last look through my folders and thankfully there they were. This was filmed on the last day in my previous house, in my friend’s empty room after everything had been moved out, when the place echoed with its high ceilings. The streetlight outside shone through a shrub and into the window, casting the door in a blue hue, and at times a passer-by or a car added moments of shadow to play with. I took advantage, of course, and began contorting my body to mimic the things seen in horror films. I was saddened to be leaving this place, but the ease of this shadow play reminded me why I had loved the house. I toyed with using the coloured version or the black and white version of the photos; in the end, I went with black and white.“
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.ie
Francesca Maxwell
“I read the book In Praise of Shadows a long time ago and loved it. So much of it fits with my idea of aesthetics and philosophy. I am sending you this painting I did a while ago. I was on holiday in Mallorca and there was this tower on a promontory looking over the sea. Such towers are common all over the Mediterranean, built as lookouts against invasions and as warnings to ships. They have different shapes according to the people who built them. This one was round and fluted. The light cast on it by lamps at night created double and triple shadows of people. I thought it was a great metaphor for shadows revealing other sides of ourselves, and for shadows taking on an independent life of their own.“
Charly Skilling
“I have always been a little ambivalent about shadows – there are definitely good shadows and bad shadows, and somehow it’s always the bad shadows that haunt my dreams! However, I have always been drawn to the shadows created when the sun shines through the window on a bright, sunny day, making gentle, swaying shapes of plants and trees outside while creating warmth and stillness inside. Such moments encapsulate the calm and tranquillity that is so often missing from everyday life.“
Jan Blake
“I feel as though I have been chasing shadows for the past couple of weeks to find the images I wanted. Sometimes the sun was just feeble or it was a dull day? Curious as we have had such a lot of sun this year. However yesterday I managed to get what I was looking for as the sun was really strong from early morning when I needed it. I am drawn to the Japanese and Chinese calligraphy and the Sumi paintings. However I chose photography to keep a limited pallet and imagery in a different media.”
Kerfe Roig
I’ve been doing shadows collages for months now. I selected a few for this prompt, some of the less ominous ones, since we are praising them (although obviously I think it’s OK to praise their darker side as well). I’ve also written many shadow poems, and here is an excerpt from one to accompany the art:
because creation holds its shadow
close, not leading or following
but enveloping itself in a cocoon
like an endless refrain
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
James Randall
“In Praise of Shadows – was great to think about day to day existence from a different perspective – then imagine it under different lighting! I was working on a different image and decided that it would work as martial arts and added a shadowy setting around it to try and work in the theme – maybe!”
Next up, our prompt is the work of artist Nnenna Okore, whose tactile, organic sculptures often made from everyday materials explore change and renewal.
Red's Kingdom 
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