Ordinary Light
Shared solo exhibition
2 - 29 April 2022
art.b
Cape Town
Through these works, I wish to share with the viewer moments when I found exceptional beauty within ordinary surroundings. Afternoon sunlight transformed these fragments of commonplace interiors into vignettes of significance. The play of filtered, coloured light on painted plaster, carpet, shower curtains, and taps, altered these mundane scenes into something special, even magical. For a fleeting moment, they held all my attention and filled my being. They became spaces to pause in, to absorb and reflect on the beauty hiding in the seemingly trivial details of everyday living. Context was irrelevant in selecting the scenes. A bathroom in a friend’s house, or a staircase in a government building, transcended into a site of contemplation and held as much value as the venerated interior of a countryside church.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Pat Schneider, The patience of ordinary things.
