Shadow lands

McBride profiles Irish photographer Aoife Shanahan whose explorations invite the audience to look more closely and more intensely at the image. 'Within the Shadows' is the work of Shanahan and is both a celebration of the medium's early alchemy and an entry into a seductive modern universe of light and shadow. The series consists of images shot around city streets, but the artist's terse, generic titles, such as Glint, give no clue to specific locations. This lack of place names gives the impression of an anonymous, timeless city; the absence of geographical anchors also invites viewers to focus more on the composition, formal aesthetics and materiality of the medium.