Pallas Projects are pleased to present These Dark Shapes by Róisín White, the 7th exhibition in the Artist-Initiated Projects 2020/21 programme.

These Dark Shapes is a totem to a feeling. These shapes grew in the body, they grew and took up space. They grew roots, roots that they used to cling to my bones, but also walk around on. Sometimes they would leave, sometimes they would sit inside my ribcage and draw all of my attention.

So I decided to build them, outside of myself.

“And what shall we make ourselves from today? A memory, a seedling, a word? What can we hold up to the light and find despair has not yet touched?” – The Crying Book, Heather Christle

These Dark Shapes is a study into the burden of carrying around a secret; the heavy feeling you might experience while struggling under the weight of grief or sadness. These shapes have been built as a means to dispel this feeling from the body, as means to separate oneself from an overwhelming , clenched-fist, sensation.

Through sculpture and photography, White invites the viewer to imagine the shape of their feelings, the things they carry around with them day after day. Does it have shape you recognise? Does it have a colour? Can we create a shape that the helps us lighten the load, lessen the burden. Can the act of creating the feeling outside of ourselves, help us to overcome it, cast it away, or live alongside it in the next room.

This work was originally conceived in late 2019, but has grown and changed shape throughout the events of 2020, and our ongoing lived experience of a global pandemic. In what began as a personal journey into understanding one’s own physical response to stress and sadness, has become a widely experienced and intensive body-scan. We are all constantly wondering and diagnosing every minute feeling in our bodies, questioning it’s validity, it’s authenticity, it’s root, or it’s motive.