Kelly Akashi

Ghebaly Gallery is pleased to present Shadow Film by Kelly Akashi, the artist’s first film installation, originally developed for her debut institutional solo exhibition at Sculpture Center, New York in 2017.

Shadow Film is composed of three elements: a 16mm projector, a 16mm film, and a suspended cut-out copper foil screen. The projector acts as a lighting device, casting light through the film onto the foil screen. The copper foil, punctured by the shapes of leaves traced from local weeds, masks the projector’s light which filters through onto the wall behind. The film, depicting the igniting, flickering, and extinguishing of flames, both visually captures chemical light and is itself made from a process of chemical rendering.

Central to Shadow Film is the phenomenon of combustion. Using one of Akashi’s light- capturing processes, the work examines a sequence of illuminating transformations while toggling between natural and mechanical worlds. The distinctions between the two are blurred, as is typical of the artist’s work, with the flame’s wavering glow melding with the projector’s flickering light.

The film shifts between wide, magnified shots of the flame in black and white and in color, which are simultaneously reflected by the copper foil and cast through it like inverted shadows. The work considers the role of light in both photographic processes and photosynthetic organisms, and draws connections between the broader use of fire and air in Akashi’s practice.

Kelly Akashi (b. 1983, Los Angeles, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Southern California. Recent solo exhibitions include SculptureCenter, New York, USA; Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; and Tomorrow Gallery, New York, USA. She has recently exhibited at White Cube, London, UK; Gladstone Gallery, New York, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, USA; Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris, France; Antenna Space, Shanghai, China; Venus, Los Angeles, USA; and Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, France. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Mousse, Frieze, and ArtReview, among other publications.