I love the boldness and directness of silhouettes but what inspires me most is the way a silhouette reduces a form and abstracts it into something graphic and fascinating. I find the ambiguity of abstracted shapes exciting. They keep the eyes moving and the mind guessing.
I was lucky enough to find a display of silhouettes at the National Portrait Gallery recently. I found them completely by accident and I was thrilled to learn more about their history and explore this display of silhouettes from 1770 to the present day. They included artworks which were made before the invention of photography as a way to make quick portraits of the social elite. The use of silhouettes has gone through different stages of popularity but they remain a form of contemporary art practise today. The gallery also included; ‘Isabella Blow, 2002’, a work by contemporary artists Noble and Webster. The artwork is an assemblage of taxidermy animals. When the work is set up in a dimly lit space, with a spotlight behind, it casts a shadow in the form of the profile of fashion stylist Isabella Blow.
More info;
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/subjects-and-themes/medium/silhouettes
https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/20101/isabella-blow-by-noble-and-webster
Stephen Feather art blog 