the flattening / isidora carnojevic

The changing of light and shadow defines the basic impression on an observer – it creates a contrasting, disturbing scene out of something that was a flat, calming surface. It is the shadow which, with its presence, creates a three dimensional picture out of one that is two dimensional, it is its existence that confirms the existence of a third dimension. Paradoxically, its basic feature here is to do the opposite – by its presence it creates a two dimensional out of three dimensional scene, it subtracts instead of adding a dimension, and does that not by absence, but by an even stronger presence of shadow.