Shuster + Moseley
Art Installations
Edward Shuster and Claudia Moseley’s collaboration crystallised around light following their early collaborations, since 2008, at the intersection of music, video, and poetry. Claudia Moseley’s early years were spent on film sets. At school, she explored the possibilities offered by the darkroom as a means to deconstruct the photographic apparatus. Edward Shuster’s route was through studying philosophy and examining the translation of ideas into material form. Together the duo navigated towards a practice that uses glass ‘interfaces’ as a means to express both poetic and technological motifs through their interaction with light, which they view as an active metaphor for consciousness.
After developing a series of projects together that solidified their shared passion for blending art and life, in 2014 Edward Shuster and Claudia Moseley formalised their conceptual art studio as the frame in which to synthesise their unique skill sets and individual practices. Their work catalyses each other’s vision in an alchemical blurring of academic approaches and creative intuitions.
Early works, such as Layer’s Lair & C’est ci used light as a hypnotic tool to convey a meditative state – an intention that laid the foundation for their later light-mobiles. Geometric works using float glass cones became the cornerstone for their thinking on the composition and decomposition of light and how it is expressed in space.
Their artworks offer a unique experience in dialogue with both artificial and/or natural light, exploring physical processes in interaction with conscious experience so as to enable the mining of multiple theoretical, technological and scientific conceptualisations. What Matters (The Scattering), for example, involved collaboration with the Institute of Computational Cosmology, mapping the cosmic microwave background radiation in the universe inside a mediaeval church. Their projects are heavily research-based, their notebooks full of text, sketches, and diagrams, which guide the creation of their optical installations and sculptures. Each time going back to the essence of light and its potentialities, the duo reflect deeply on the way in which our contemporary world is structured through the interaction of informational light and technological interfaces, considering how to deconstruct this process, opening light onto new meditative dimensions.
For many projects, Shuster and Moseley are inspired by site-specificity. Recent large-scale public installations, such as the (Plan of the Path of Light) In the House of the Hidden Places at the Pyramids of Giza, are conceived based on archeoastronomy that is unique to the location. Horizon of Day and Night formed a diagrammatic circle that interfaced the seasonal passage of the sun, using a geometry of pillars of light to punctuate the landscape.
Throughout their work, the experience of the viewer takes precedence. Working with light, they work with the phenomenon of consciousness in its all complex interactions with both technological and meditative practices. To experience their work is to be amazed by the sheer beauty of their work but also be invited to explore the multi-layered conceptual and theoretical stories.
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
2023
Jewel of Space, Seismic – ‘Art meets Science’ group show curated by Paul Carey-Kent for Seisma Magazine at Giant Gallery, Bournemouth, UK
2022
Opened Onto the Inside of a Star, ‘Climate’ curated by Alison Wilding RA, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2021
Do Not Be Afraid of the Brilliant Lights, Dual show with Bongsu Park at Gallery Rosenfeld, London, UK.
Horizon of Day and Night (monolith i.li 96°), Artissima with Gallery Rosenfeld, Turin, Italy.
Crystals of Time, British Embassy, Cairo, Egypt.
2020
Cosmoscopic Key, ‘Art In Flux: Media Arts Now’, Ars Electronica online exhibition, Austria.
Living Light, ‘Painting the Infinite’, Gallery Rosenfeld, London, UK.
Lights Through Paradox, ‘Light Windows’, Holocenter international exhibition, New York, US.
Light: Mobile, MTArt Agency group exhibition, WeCollect, County Hall, London, UK.
2019
Celestial Void, ‘Through the Looking Glass’, curated by Lumen Studios, Ugly Duck, London, UK.
Twilight Language: Aurora and Progress: The Angel of History, ‘Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art’, Gallery Rosenfeld, London, UK.
2018
Quietude: In-Finities, ‘Extended Mind’, curated by Arte Luce, Alte Münze, Berlin, Germany.
Epiphany at a Distance, site-specific installation for ‘Light Art Biennale’, curated by Vittorio Erlindo, Palazzo Ducale, Mantova, Italy.
Progress, ‘XX Cerveira International Art Biennial’, Castelo de Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal.
Cosmoscopic Key, ‘Art in Flux’, curated by Flux, Ugly Duck, London, UK
Expanding Cones and Harmonic Lens, ‘Lucid Haze’ curated by Presenza, Sketch, London, UK.
2017
Antiprisms, Art Miami with Dillon + Lee Gallery, Miami, US.
2016
Quietude, outdoor installation for dual show with Nathaniel Rackowe, curated by ARTinTRA, part of ‘The Collective’, House of St Barnabas, London, UK
2015
‘Interface’, solo exhibition supported by Arts Council England, 223 Gallery Waterloo, London, UK.
Garden of Earthly Delights, featured artists in Frieze week group show, The Exhibitionist Gallery South Kensington, London, UK.
Collections
The Empty Mirror of the Sky, MAD Collection
Lights Through Paradox, Dorchester Collection
(Plan of the Path of Light) In the House of the Hidden Places, National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, Cairo, Egypt
Crystals of Time, British Embassy, Cairo, Egypt
Horizon of Day and Night, Royal Commission for Al Ula (UNESCO World Heritage Site), UA
Quietude, MTArt Corporate Collection, UK.
Progress, Cerveira Art Biennial Foundation, Portugal.
Selected Projects and Commissions
2023
From the Dust and Debris, permanent site-specific commission for TSX Broadway Times Square, New York.
Ornament of Solar Lights, permanent site-specific commission for Walzwerk Studios, Basel.
Innermost Hollow, permanent site-specific commission for Nazareth Church, Berlin, Germany.
Lights Through Paradox, permanent site-specific commission for Dorchester, Dubai.
Body of Light, Lumiere, Durham, UK.
2021
(Plan of the Path of Light) In the House of the Hidden Places, large-scale installation for Forever is Now, Art D’Egypte at the Great Pyramids of Giza, Cairo, Egypt.
The Shape of Light, large-scale installation for D3, Dubai.
Brain Gazing, virtual environment commissioned by Oxford NanoImaging, developed with the ‘Molecular Neuroscience Group’, Cambridge University and UCL’s ‘Faculty of Brain Sciences’, UK.
2020
Horizon of Day and Night, large-scale outdoor sculpture commissioned by Vice Media for Al Ula UNESCO World Heritage Site, UAE.
2019
Quietude: Blue, bespoke installation commissioned by Bucherer, Berlin, Germany.
2018
Future Bodies, virtual sculpture commissioned by OneDome, San Francisco, US.
2017
What Matters, two site-specific artworks commissioned by Artichoke, developed with the ‘Institute for Computational Cosmology’, Durham University, for Lumiere Durham, UK.
Selected Awards and Publications
2023
‘Forces for Change’,Film and Magazine Feature for Vogue.
2022
‘Optics and Art’, by Alessia H. Kirkland for Optica Magazine.
2021
‘Forever is Now’, exhibition catalogue by Simon Watson and Nadine Abdel Ghaffar, foreword by Neville Wakefield.
‘Space’, feature on the artists by Cusson Cheng for Art and Piece Magazine.
‘Why Dubai Design Week Might be the Best Yet’, featuring the artist’s work, Architectural Digest Middle East.
2020
‘What Matters’ CODAawards Merit Winner.
‘What Matters to Shuster + Moseley’, interview with Paul Carey-Kent for Seisma Magazine.
2019
‘Cosmic Couple’, feature on the artists by Valentina Mariani for Hia Magazine.
2018
‘Extended Mind – Arte Luce’, exhibition catalogue by Alice Hinrichs for Present Books.
‘Biennale Light Art Mantova’, exhibition catalogue by Vittorio Erlindo for Manfredi Edizioni ‘Artes Plásticas Tradicionais e Artes Digitais’, exhibition catalogue by Fundação Bienal de Cerveira for XX Cerveira International Art Biennial.
‘Transformation Illusion’, exhibition catalogue by Art in Flux.
‘Where is God in the 21st Century – Chaiya Art Awards’, exhibition catalogue for Instant Apostle.
2017
‘Future Now – Art Prize Anthology’, Aesthetica Magazine.
2016
‘Light – Interface’, for Art in Flux by Flux Events.
2015
‘The Art of the Interface’, monographic volume, online publication, http://www.shustermoseley.com/ theartoftheinterface.
Selected
artworks
Cinema of the Inner Eye , 2021
Hand blown glass, optically coated glass, aluminium, steel cable and LEDs 80 x 40 x 60 cm
What Matters (The Scattering) , 2017
2300 Suspended fragments of hand blown glass bubbles, steel cable and digital projectors 1300 x 500 x 400 cm
Deep Time Clouds , 2018
Hand blown glass, optical filters and screens, electronic components, crystals, stainless steel bars 120-170 x 60 x 60 cm
Cosmological Overtones in the Observer’s Light Code , 2019
Hand blown glass, steel cable and LED 200 x 100 x 100 cm
