Duncan McGillivray-Smith's 'Game of Shadows': Where the Mundane Turns Uncanny

4 hours ago7 min read2 comments

Duncan McGillivray-Smith's exhibition, 'Game of Shadows,' commands attention not through spectacle, but through a masterful cultivation of unease. The artist expertly transforms the architecture of daily life into a series of meticulously staged, psychologically charged tableaux.In works like 'The Hunt,' a seemingly ordinary social gathering is imbued with a palpable tension—a fleeting glance that suggests conspiracy, a shadow that defies logic. This is horror of the most sophisticated kind, echoing the suspense of Hitchcock and the surreal disquiet of David Lynch, where true fear resides in implication.McGillivray-Smith wields light and shadow as narrative tools; his darknesses are not empty voids but active elements that conceal, suggest, and threaten. The profound sense of disorientation is built upon an almost obsessive attention to detail: the grain of a wooden table, the oppressive quality of a silence, the subtle distance between figures in a room.These are not closed stories but open-ended provocations, inviting the viewer to complete the narrative with their own subconscious fears. The art becomes a collaborative act of unease. To experience 'Game of Shadows' is to have the familiar world subtly unmade, leaving you to question the stability of every quiet corner and casual interaction long after you've left the gallery.

#Duncan McGillivray-Smith

#art exhibition

#narrative painting

#uncanny

#disquiet

#contemporary art

#Hyperallergic

#featured

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