In Darkness Merge finds meaning in shadows

Oakland-based Penelope Anstruther comes down to Atlanta for her new solo exhibition.

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Oakland-based Penelope Anstruther had to get creative for her upcoming exhibition, [https://www.facebook.com/events/1147019658663900/|In Darkness Merge My Shadow and I], at Hi-Lo Press. Her usual gravitation to heavy found objects came to a screeching halt as soon as she saw herself limited by the airline’s baggage allowance of 50 pounds. We’ve all been there. “Instead I decided to work with their rubbings, which became their shadows, the airless part of their remains. These marks become relics reconfigured: a stand in for their origins and reminders of the significance of touch,” reads her artist statement.


“Because she is traveling with weight limitations she is making impressions of objects unable to attend,” Hi-Lo Press’ Dianna Settles says. “Anstruther works with fragments, transforming the overlooked and discarded into reverent, considerate arrangements. These small pieces interact with one another in the spaces she installs in to create much larger conversations about sense of identity, loss of spirituality, cultural incongruities, and disintegration.”

Settles met the British artist at school in San Francisco where they were both studying printmaking and now Settles is bringing her to Atlanta to show at her Midtown gallery space. “We are excited to see what she does with the gallery and how being introduced to Atlanta will influence the compositions, especially in light of our city’s changing identity from its rapidly developing landscape and how that speaks to the themes central to her work,” Settles says. 

[https://www.facebook.com/events/1147019658663900/|Hi-Lo Press’ In Darkness Merge My Shadow and I show opens on Sat., May 7, at 7 p.m. and is free to the public.