
Shadow Series
Part of Grace Under Precious, an upcoming all-women exhibition, this 20-piece watercolor series draws on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, one of the most enduring metaphors for perception and truth. In the allegory, prisoners mistake shadows on the wall for reality, until one turns toward the light and discovers a world beyond illusion. I chose 20 passages from this text, each inscribed within a painting, to follow this journey from darkness to illumination and the rejection that meets the return.
Each work traces two layers of my hand’s shadows, shifting with light and angle. These overlapping forms suggest the unseen double we all carry. Beyond Plato’s parable, shadow here also speaks to the deepest corners of ourselves: the parts we prefer to hide, the qualities society calls negative, the emotions tied to guilt, shame, and fear. By witnessing our own shadows, we begin to acknowledge what is suppressed, standing with the more difficult aspects of ourselves to ask how they might serve rather than hinder.
The series becomes a meditation on perception and reality as twofold. If shadows can distort, might they also illuminate?
Shadow Series, 2025, Watercolor, 20 works, 12 × 18 in. (30.5 × 45.7 cm) each
© Fanyu Lin/Artists Rights Society (ARS)