The exhibition Under shadows conceived for the Kornfeld Galerie Berlin brings together new and recent works by Tamara Kvesitadze and Shunxiang Hu — two female artists whose lives and practices are shaped by profound social and political pressures. Kvesitadze, from Georgia, works in a country currently facing mounting authoritarianism and widespread civic unrest. Hu, born during China’s One-Child Policy as a second daughter, was forced to relinquish her identity and assume another in order to exist. Each has lived under shadow — political, cultural, personal — and through their work, each steps out of it.

The two artists met in Berlin at the end of 2024, sharing an apartment and studio space provided by the gallery — far from the geographies that shaped them, yet deeply tethered to them. In this shared space of displacement and introspection, a dialogue emerged — not just between two individuals, but between generations, cultures, and artistic languages. Kvesitadze’s sculptural and painterly works explore the fragmented female body as a symbol of resistance, memory, and intimacy. Hu’s portraits, delicate and quietly expressive, reflect on identity in transition — elusive, emotional, and deeply human.

The shadow becomes central in this exhibition: not simply a lack of light, but a terrain of meaning. Shadows here hold memory, speak of trauma, conceal and reveal. Under shadows invites viewers into a space where visibility itself is precarious — where bodies, emotions, and identities appear in layered tension between what is seen and what is felt. It asks not only what lies in the shadow, but how the shadow itself speaks — of loss, transformation, and the fragile act of becoming visible.

(Text by Tereza de Arruda, Berlin, April 2025)