A shadow holds: United Contemporary

Presented in the intimate setting of United Contemporary’s Project Space, a shadow holds is an exhibition of new work by Ry Van Der Hout, created during their residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity as the recipient of the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award (2026).

This body of work continues Van Der Hout’s expansive approach to the photographic medium and their ongoing use of glass and mirrors as a vessel through which to explore queer experience and becoming. In their multidisciplinary practice, photography is embraced as both image and object, employing traditional analogue darkroom and stained glass processes to express conditions of disruption, renewal, and repair.

Each piece in this series begins with an act of fragmentation – a clear sheet of glass is shattered with the strike of a hammer, or cut by hand. The broken pane is then taken to the darkroom, where it becomes the negative for a colour photogram. Placing the glass on top of a photosensitive paper support, Van Der Hout traces through the fracture lines using handheld light and coloured gels to create a cameraless photographic image. The glass panel is then repaired using a traditional Tiffany copper-foil technique and reunited with its corresponding photogram as glazing within the final work, both protecting and mirroring the image beneath.

Forged in the darkroom, the photograms are part light drawing and part blind painting. By combining controlled gestures with elements of unseen darkroom alchemy, the works explore the tension and freedom found between states of control and chance, the tangible and the immaterial. Van Der Hout’s initial act of breakage becomes a catalyst for something new to emerge. It is only in the development process that the resulting image, with its vibrant chemical-hued colour palette, is revealed.