Shadowscapes: Heaney, JMW Turner and Quantum
Image by Libby Heaney
Libby Heaney’s Shadowscapes invites us to explore the multidimensional connections between JMW Turner, quantum physics and the self. Over the last 100 years, quantum physics has allowed us to see and feel in completely new and surprising ways.
Award winning artist and quantum physicist Libby Heaney collides JMW Turner’s 250th birthday with the centenary of quantum physics. Listen and feel Turner’s paintings in Heaney’s ever evolving digital-quantum sound installation and interact with a shadowy projection. This exhibition brings together amorphous bodies, technology and moments of sublime ecstasy. Taking inspiration from psychotherapist CG Jung, Heaney reinterprets Turner’s use of light and dark as psychological metaphors for her own unruly emotions. Personal and deeply self-reflective, through Turner’s paintings of imagined forces and bodies, Heaney explores her ‘shadow self’ – the parts of ourselves we deem unacceptable, and therefore unconsciously suppress.
‘Accessing our shadow selves is important as when shadows are not in our awareness, we tend to project them onto different groups and nature causing polarisation, domination and division.’ – Libby Heaney
For the first time at Orleans House Gallery, see the JMW Turner paintings that have inspired Heaney’s reflections – The Vision of Jacob’s Ladder (?) (c.1830), The Hero of a Hundred Fights (1800-10, reworked 1847) and Rocky Bay with Figures (1827-30).
As Heaney weaves together the universes of quantum, JMW Turner and CG Jung, you’re invited to reflect on the dark, the light and the quantum.
We will be celebrating the opening of Shadowscapes on Thursday 9 October from 6-9pm. This event is free but booking is advised.
Please note that some of the artworks on display in the Octagon Room will be unavailable to view on the following days in October:
Thursday 16 October from 2pm
Friday 17 October
Saturday 18 October
Sunday 19 October
Tuesday 21 October
Thursday 23 October from 2pm
Friday 24 October
Saturday 25 October
Sunday 25 October
