Michael Marson

February 1, 2023

last

SHADOW AND SPACE

Michael Marson

February 1, 2023

last

First, mark out an area in a room. Consider it, remove the objects in the room with your mind,

and make up the boundaries like walls within walls. Make the environment negate and oppose

its original place, constructing the space with forms that are not opaque walls but glass.

Clear substance. But, still a box.

We observe things through their relationship to ourselves; our reflection is cast in a shadow and

frame, held in focus and falling into a background, indistinct and white-walled. The subject

stands out on the margins and is fringed in explicit mold. Implicit movement functions as a

passage of perspective into a flat image. Into what was a flat image.

What is an ‘intense environment’ has disappeared into a lapping mass of media. What was a

maximalist silhouette is placed into balance with the simplicity of black and a with the density of

darkness.

Pattern, shape and shadow flay around angles reminiscent of the human body. Two

bodies compose a language, a structure that bulges like a Bad Binge skirt, splitting torso and

tail. Faces sprout from earthly shapes and limbs like a long-lost memory, a once-a-year

allegory. Modernity in silhouette and dress is tied to a head like Miró spots drowning out into

dark drop sheets. In one moment, a Thom Browne notched lapel and tartan suit stand tall, their

lines cutting sharply from left to right. In the next, a black billow and spreading Wiederhoeft

dress digs deep into white walls like mulled wine on cold nights. Then, a hard hand, touched by

another like a shifting shadow, meets with a tap. They are built with a formality of contour, a

construction with a fitting form and a rhythmic consistency riding from shoulder to sleeve and

pleated skirt to bowler hat.

Opposites of light and dark are fused into tie and blazer, a square of stressed and unstressed

syllables, one light and the other heavy. It is observable, audible, and can catalyze emotions as

strong as gray rain. Their purpose is only as flexible as a hem can be stressed. It can only be

captured in an image. The two forms express one thought and sentiment.

Think of them as a sonnet.

by Billy De Luca

Photography by Austin Augie

Fashion by Yael quint

Featuring Sasha Kichigina at KOLLEKTIV MGMT & Ian Jeffrey at IMG

Hair by Ryuta Sayama

Make-Up by Olivia Barad

Lighting and photo assistant Greg Molinterno

Stylist’s assitant Heather Sage Blair

Clothes Wiederhoeft, Arielle Baron, Thom Browne & Bad Binch