On a dark winter lockdown day, on a black-painted partition wall incorporating two doors and a rhythm of painted-over windows, Antoni Malinowski started to make a notation of light’s journey across the wall. He then began painting with lamp black — soot which transmutes to a silvery ashen colour against the black of the wall. He juxtaposed this with other black pigments — an elusive light began to emerge from the blackness. The room’s shadows and light patches lent a vocabulary of shapes as he traced the light’s shimmering presence. An occasional sunset reflection led Antoni to use nanotechnology interference pigments that bend light’s wavelengths. Light is absorbed, reflected, refracted and scattered. In this way, Antoni explored the dark light’s hollow depth.
“Through which the light passes” became the starting point of a larger exhibition. With the help of the Ragged School Museum’s director Erica Davies, Antoni invited other artists to make interventions, films, photographs — the Ragged Art Festival was born.
The online exhibition shows works by Hélène Binet, Yong Min Cho, Alexandre da Cunha, Oona Grimes, Jefford Horrigan, Liliane Lijn, Antoni Malinowski, Kathy McCarthy and Katrina Palmer. This is accompanied by a special text written by Jenni Lomax.