Year: 2006
Medium: pigment print
Dimensions: 134.6 x 106.7 cm (53 x 42 in.)
Edition: No. 3 of 5
Acquired from Phillips, 2024
Sugimoto describes his creative practice within the “Colors of Shadow” series as a tool for the observation of shadows—and this piece is a photographic work that focuses on shadow rather than light. According to Stoichita’s “A Short History of the Shadow”, painting began with tracing shadows with a fingertip. Art can function as an enlightening device that illuminates the dark with light, shadows inevitably appear behind anything struck by light. Given that the camera is an “optical device”, photography is undoubtedly an expressive approach that takes light as its medium. Light and shadow are the double-edged principle of photography, a principle to which Sugimoto returns once again in this work: for the series, the artist took a room and established a space with white, plastered walls. The light bounces off the smoothly curved plaster surfaces, creating a similarly non-linear expression of shadow. Sugimoto’s camera follows the interior, structure to his own design, which allows for various angles to capture the constantly changing expression of light and shadow. Although the title refers to “Colors,” the artist has written that “deep shadows leave a lingering reverberation… discovering unexpected colors within shadows”. Sugimoto enjoys the colors found in shadow rather than in light —that is to say, the harmony of shadow.
