Claudio Pereyra
In Praise of the Shadow  ::: Claudio Pereyra

In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind and consists of repressed, weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
Claudio Pereyra has grasped this idea and translated its concept into a series of original and creative works in which the encounter with the shadow plays a central part in our interpretation and appreciation of the art.

Like Jung, Pereyra feels that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity."  In the shadow, the artist has hidden the things he is reluctant to acknowledge about himself however, he candidly invites us into his psychological labyrinth in an effort to confront his fear and recognize those impulses and become aware (and sometimes ashamed of as he puts it) of the qualities he denies in himself; the schemes, plots, and the unreal fantasies that haunt the realm of his unconscious.

And, once we begin to travel up and down this spiral healing process in the enlightened color white, our shadow follows as we struggle to retain awareness of its presence and assimilate it, rather than let ourselves be possessed by its dark depths.