Shadowland 2002

Curator: Fiona Rae's "Shadowland" presents such a playful, almost chaotic composition. I'm curious, what’s your first reaction to it? Editor: It feels like a digital dreamscape, or perhaps a screen saver on acid. There's this darkness, punctuated by these almost neon-bright, glyph-like forms. Curator: Right? Rae’s known for blending abstraction with elements of pop culture, and you see that here. The shapes feel like a mix of emojis and graffiti tags, floating in a void. Editor: Precisely. I wonder, though, if the 'void' is speaking to something larger – the digital space where identities and meanings are so fluid, almost unanchored from the material world. Curator: Absolutely, it makes you think about how we’re constructing ourselves online. Rae offers a way to make visible this sense of the intangible, digital identity we’re constantly performing. Editor: And isn’t that itself a kind of shadowland? Where our avatars dance in the dark? It's both visually arresting and unsettling in what it says about our mediated existence. Curator: It's a complex work with a deceptively light touch. So much to unpack in what seems initially like visual fun. Editor: Indeed, a reminder that even the most playful surfaces can reflect profound depths.