It’s almost end of March but the weather is still chilly in Shanghai. On this chilly Sunday evening at M50 at Moh Gan San Lu (莫干山路50号), an art district in Shanghai, most galleries were preparing to close at 5pm as I hurried into the opening of ORBS by Madi Lu at J.Gallery and for some heat.
“By Wikipedia, the term of ORBS describes unexpected, typically circular artifacts that occur in flash photography. ORBS was also explained as high energy by spirituality. Madi Ju captured shadows and lights and check them together. Slowly, the ORBS which is in her deep subconscious appears on these minute and distant pictures.”
In “ORBS”, the artist presents 13 photos of this collection, and it’s the first time she is presenting the collection to the public after fully experimenting the layering and lightning effects of several images that she has taken over time. In this series, the artist explains to me the photos are more focused on the spiritual and consciousness.
May it be spiritual or the consciousness. I almost fell into a dream scape as I admire the photos. Several photos falls into the orbs and spiritual theme. Some others create a dreamlike and sometimes out-of-body experience. Every photo was created out of several layers of images formed together, each telling a story of the artist journey and exploration, mind and spirit.
On one photo, I spied a French and Chinese text that says 神物 Fétiche (Fetish). Could this be a hint that the artist has some spiritual fetish in her consciousness? Only for her to know and us to find out.
Click here to view more photos at our Flickr album.
