By Joel E. Ferraris
After my successful solo art performance and exhibition titled TINY STUDIO at the Sara Sen Gallery in June 2008 which was featured in TimeOut Hong Kong (print and online) I once again found myself chasing, tracing and painting the shadows of people.
It was a suspenseful short time before the event waiting for the guests to arrive. As I gazed at the blank canvases arranged on the wall I wondered what image would finally come out several hours later.
Unlike the previous project I had where the shadow of the entire human body was traced this time the focus was on people's hands as they tried to form animal-like shapes with the aid of a professional shadow artist who happens to be a Filipino-Chinese citizen of Hong Kong.
The one night event was so interesting as people took turns on standing in front of the spotlights to allow their hands to cast interesting shadows on the large modular canvas.
There were three of us in the team. I was assisted by my lovely wife Sally and beautiful young Karina Rivera-Curlewis. Young Karina also joined us in the Hong Kong Mural Society to paint the giant mural in Tsing Yi island in mid- 2000.
The mural is now in my studio as I continue to put some more elements to it. I plan to add some more exciting elements to surprise viewers later on.
On hindsight, as I recall how people, delegates from different countries, form shapes of animals out of their hands’ shadows during the events night, I reflect on the fact that and the irony of it all that it is mankind’s handiwork that contributed in the trend towards extinction of some species of living things.
Now the threat of global warming casts a dark and dangerous shadow in people’s lives.
