Daniella Mooney
Born in Nelspruit South Africa (1986), Cape Town based artist Daniella Mooney’s work has unfolded as an exploration and understanding of light. Light, being multi-faceted in nature permeates every aspect of reality, and as easy as it is to know what light is, it is harder to tell what light is.
Many of the works try capture some of the intrinsic qualities that light possess; be it the transcendent effect of looking up toward the blue sky, the ephemeral essence of a rainbow or the intangible rays extending from the sun. Yet through this attempt to capture, contain and understand, there is an inherent unattainable substance which can only be understood through the consideration of light as a metaphor for consciousness.
Some of the works mirror this unattainable essence, and as a result set up a duality of light, for light is better understood in conjunction with its more portentous counterpart, darkness. Therefore it becomes about the descent into the subconscious, which brings us closer to
understanding ones perception of light, and consequently ones own light.
In this instance, the perception of light is pivotal in attempting to transcend an idea of reality. This attempt is made manifest through belief and the imagination. The unseen world of light becomes vast and mysterious. Through the understanding of light as consciousness, there is a desire to permeate through the old, into another dimension, into a New World.
This tantalising light of other worlds and the realisation thereof is brief, for just as the Heliotropism of life snares one in a daily cycle so too do we become caught between two worlds, sky and earth.
