Where the Light Leads

Where the Light Leads - by Jess Thompson-Hughes

A fleeting figure moves through a sun-bleached street, gathering the folds of her dress as she turns towards something beyond the frame.

Where the Light Leads is less concerned with place than with a moment: the warmth of an afternoon, the movement of fabric caught in the air, and the brief impression of someone passing through an unfamiliar street.

The surrounding architecture is deliberately indistinct, dissolving into muted stone, blue-grey shadow and brilliant light. Against it, the warmth of the figure, her windswept hair and the sweeping folds of her white dress create a sense of movement within an otherwise quiet scene.

Her face remains concealed beneath the exaggerated brim of her hat. Without an expression to explain the moment, her story is left deliberately unresolved. She might be arriving or leaving; turning towards someone or simply following the street ahead.

The viewer is invited to decide.

At its heart, Where the Light Leads is about the fragments from which memories are often constructed — light, warmth, movement and the fleeting presence of another person — long after the details of a particular time or place have begun to disappear.