Janetka Platun Cataract 2023. Toughened glass, chalk 50 x50 x 50cm. Photography by Tessa Hallmann.

Absence of Light is a series of sculptural pieces exploring the contradictions of loss and survival, adherence and separation, lightness and weight, fragments and recreation. They explore the shadow that accompanies us through life, and how the absence of light has shaped our stories, spirituality and culture.

The works on show are an abstract language of loss that merge science with superstition. A selection of these have been developed with Dr Kurt W. Kolasinski, Professor of Physical Chemistry at West Chester University. Central to their collaboration is black silicon. When the beam of a pulsed laser is directed onto a silicon wafer, the exposed area appears blackened, creating a dark terrain void of light.

The exhibition is accompanied by a commissioned essay by Lizzie Lloyd.

Janetka Platun’s practice is concerned with experiences and temporalities of memory and loss, absence and presence and the traces these leave – on bodies, on matter, on places. Her art attends to the inter-relational complexities of people, place, time and desire. Janetka originally studied sculpture at Camberwell School of Arts and was an Artist Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. Her trans-disciplinary projects with scholars and migrant communities in the UK and worldwide have explored the disorientating and non-linear effects of migration. In 2025, she exhibited her installation ‘On the Art of Teeth’ at Barts Pathology Museum, a collaboration with Dr David Mills. Her public art commission ‘There Were People’ commemorated the post-war Polish refugee camp in Hiltingbury, Hampshire.

Kurt W. Kolasinski is a professor of physical chemistry at West Chester University and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. After reading chemistry (Pittsburgh), he obtained his PhD from Stanford. Following post-doctoral work at the Fritz-Haber-Institut (Berlin) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, MD, USA) he held faculty positions at Birmingham, Queen Mary, and Virginia. His research focuses on surface science, laser/surface interactions and nanoscience. Author of over 125 scholarly publications and the textbooks Surface Science: Foundations of Catalysis and Nanoscience and Physical Chemistry: How Chemistry Works, he is the content creator for the YouTube channel Kolasinski’s Physical Chemistry. He authored Most na Odrze/Oder Bridge/Oderbrücke, a photo essay on the complicated relationship of Poland and Germany and the author’s own story. Adapted into a screenplay with Cinzia Rivieri and into a documentary film The Oder Bridge with Olaf Högermeyer.

Lizzie Lloyd is an art writer and researcher. Her essays and reviews on, around, and as art have appeared in and been commissioned by numerous magazines and galleries. Her artist book, Acts of Transfer, in collaboration with Katy Beinart, was published by Social Art Library in 2022. She is currently working on an edited collection on participation in art practice for Anthem Press and a monograph called Pursuing Intimations between Art and Writing for Edinburgh University Press. She is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at UWE Bristol.