ABSTRACT
In 2010, in the Gagosian Gallery in London, the artist James Turrell created a room without shadow, filled with coloured light. It was entered through a square aperture at the top of a pyramid of steps. Shadow is the most important contribution to our visual understanding of form. With shadow things emerge from the polarities of light and darkness. Shadow is implicated in the origins of art. Before the advent of digital sensors and printers, photography depended on shadow for the production of prints. The most primitive form of photography is the silhouette or stencil. Shadow plays its part in the circadian rhythm of architecture. The sequential drawings on the right simplify the diurnal rotation of shadow in the northern hemisphere. Shadows are harbingers of creation; they can be enhanced, intensified for creative purpose.
