Juz Kitson
Shadows make the light shine brighter 

Juz Kitson’s works are exquisite musings on nature’s cycles of metamorphosis, decay, beauty and abundance. As a contemporary multi-disciplinary artist, Kitson pushes the boundaries of material and meaning, mastering the use of porcelain and other clay bodies through intricate hand-building and slip casting. Her works invites viewers to reflect on the cyclical nature of history and the potential for renewal and regeneration even in the aftermath of devastation

The short animation film Shadows Make the Light Shine Brighter is a profound reimagining of ancient Roman and Greek funerary urns, amphoras and female figurines. Meticulously hand-crafted and using photogrammetry to bring them to life in animation form, these sculptural objects merge historical reverence with a vision of a post-apocalyptic dystopian future and become the basis of the animation.

The female figure becomes a beacon of hope, symbolising the persistence of life and the continuity of human culture through the ages. It encapsulates themes of fertility and femininity, along with embodying themes of life, regeneration, and the enduring human spirit while drawing on the rich iconographic traditions of the ancient Mediterranean.

In Kitson’s installation All will reveal itself when you dive in and dive in deep sculptural morphologies beckon, whispering to the secrets of caves. Silver metallic coral-like tubular bodies are grouped collectively like a self-replicating terrestrial – their gleaming shiny metallic glaze, reminiscent of wet bodies of rocks drenched by the sea. Like a Hydra or a trans human sentinel, they connect with each other, through valves and aortas, running the same silver blood, like a ball of mercury, continually splitting itself to pump through their ocean bodies. The work asks the viewer to revel in the freedom of the unknown and the expanded expressions of possibility.

Shadows make the light shine brighter, 2024-25
photogrammetry, 3D animation, musical composition. duration 3 minutes and 45 seconds
Editing and 3D animation: Ben Trahair, Musical Composition: Craig Anthony Perkins 

All will reveal itself when you dive in and dive in deep, 2023
stoneware, raku, terracotta, lustre, various glaze

4-piece installation, stoneware, raku, terracotta, luster, various glaze.

[NB. Piece on far left in first image is not included in this installation].