KP Projects is proud to present a solo exhibition of new work from Todd Carpenter, Shadow Discarnate, an exploration into the perception of reality as immaterial facades of light and shadow.

In their very nature, shadows are disembodied, an absence of physical matter. Carpenter’s urban and natural landscapes capture this fleeting essence of light as substance. As such, Carpenter’s rich, impasto paintings are not reflective of real, physical surroundings but our perception of the outside world through light and shadow. Carpenter’s investigation of light and space can be defined as a phenomenological study of essences, including the essence of perception and of consciousness. A philosophical musing made tangible through the physicality of oil on board, these paintings are a method of describing the nature of our perceptual contact with the world. Shadow Discarnate relives the human experience of encountering space and place.

Instigating the atmosphere of a place – the smell, temperature, sound, breeze and intangible realities of a locale’s aura, Carpenter captures how an environment can define our identities on a deeper level. Shadows and light filter into the viewer’s emotions, engendering a range of moods. From an ominous foreboding of thunderous clouds, to the pale glow of daybreak, the earnest synergy of physical space trigger awareness and feeling.

“Light bears messages about where it has been, written in the distortions traced in its rays, but it is only light itself that we ever truly meet. For our eyes take in not the world, but merely light, and light is a shady messenger that cannot be trusted. What it shows is only shadows, projected on the dark wall of our subterranean imagination. Reality remains a mystery, or perhaps more precisely reality has no appearance at all other than the illusion produced by the mechanisms of minds.

If the images evoke places, they are places that can be felt but not known, and the evoked feeling is of the mystery at understanding that the real world hides behind our glimpses” – Todd Carpenter