Slavica Janeslieva
“Shadow”, Slavica Janeslieva, 2011
Slavica Janeslieva’s exhibition explores psychological, philosophical, social and anthropological aspects related to the concept of the shadow. It presents a sublimated projection of the phenomenon which physics explains in a simple way, but which, never the less, has always provoked mankind by its mysticism – since the ancient period when the shadow was a metaphor for the psyche and was connected with the Hades’ world of shadows, i.e. with the land of the dead and thus, to more recent times – in contemporary psychoanalytical interpretations, according to which, the shadow is a presentation of the unconscious and the irrational. The aspect emphasized in this project is the complex psychological significance suggested by the mysteriousness of the shadow as a distant, primitive and an indiscriminate aspect of the mind. Janeslieva refers to Jung, according to whose theory, the shadow or “the aspect of the shadow” is a part of the unconscious which within itself contains suppressed weaknesses, imperfections, defects and instincts. The shadow is instinctive and irrational and is liable to projection: it transfers personal inferiority into a visible moral imperfection of the Other, and in spite of the fact that it is personal, at the same time it is also a shadow of society.
In Slavica Janeslieva’s artistic work the narrative element has been a predominant one, as well as, the correlation between the personal stories vice versa the broader social or economic context. In the project “Shadow” the narrative aspect has been treated in a more profound way – the intimate experience of self-identification with one’s own shadow is related to the problem of the collective experience of the context. Also, the aspect of duality becomes more evident in Janeslieva’s work. She is interested in the interplay between the personal and the collective, light and dark, the present and the absent. A metaphysical aspect emphasized in this project is the correlation between the present and the absent, actually the absence of the actual source of light, of the real model… or even, the absence of the person who the shadow belongs to, a relation which is transformed into its opposite , i.e. in “the presence of the absent”. Janeslieva draws the image (the anthropomorphic figure of the human being) i.e. paints it on the wall. The displaced dimensions and perspectives of the shadow are deliberately created and are a consequence of the imagined source of light. The artistic expression of the light and the shadow is related to the Platonic idea which defines the shadow as the Other, and art itself as a shadow of shadows.
People present at the exhibition become a constituent part of the project “Shadow”. By his/her presence the viewer becomes a part of the world reflected in the shadows on the walls and is free to experience and interpret the phenomenon of the shadow in his/her own way.
Maja Cankulovska-Mihajlovska
SHADOW”, wall painting, dimensions variable, 2011.
