Strange things lurk in the back room.
The lights are dimmed, shades are
drawn. In the half-light, all manner of
signs, symbols, and creatures emerge
— things that you thought had been
pushed into the recesses of your
subconscious. To see them presented in
the flesh, or, at least, in two-dimensional
form, reminds you that they’re still
there. Based on fairy tales and
Jungian psychoanalytic philosophies,Hayley Theyers’ In the In the Dark We
Are Without Her Empress Light is a
distinct churning of dark zones. If you
want provocation, Theyers provides; if
you want to dwell in ephemeral spaces,
you will find that too.
The exhibition feels like magic is afoot
and you’ve accidentally stumbled and
become lost in a cloistered forest,
ending up in a medieval setting in which
kings are held accountable to witches.Two strikingly distinct photography shows sat engagingly
together at Black Asterisk gallery recently: one a moody
reflection on the unsettling, the other a joyous reflection on
times past. Hayley Theyers’ In the Dark We Are Without Her
Empress Light and Murray Cammick’s Queens Street made
for an excellent double featureWORDS | NINA SEJAREFLECTIONS PAST AND PRESENT
HAYLEY THEYERS, THE EMPTY CHAIR, 2018
HAYLEY THEYERS, KNOWING GRIMM, 2018