Gothic architecture takes the Romanesque arch and points it towards heaven, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses and stained glass windows create soaring, awe-inspiring spaces that connect the physical and spiritual realms. They encourage religious devotion and a sense of transcendence through light. On the other hand, the Gothic literary movement which was imagined in the ruins of these structures, celebrates darkness and supernatural atmospheres by exploring themes such as horror, romance, madness and death.

​

We have all thought, felt and intuited about this relationship between light and dark. William Blake enjoyed the combat and polarities of the play of opposites. Herman Melville, would have suggested that any definitive resolution would have been unknowable. Carl Jung would have argued that every thought or wish immediately suggests its opposite. All the artists in this show grapple with this duality in some form, wether it is the light rational human versus the dark irrational animal, ceramic’s durability yet its painful fragility, the linear forms of classicism versus Romanticism’s shading, or humanity’s strange consciousness of being part of nature but with intimations of the transcendent.

​