Shimmer

piloto pardo is pleased to announce Shimmer, the first solo exhibition by Giles Thackway in London. The exhibition presents a series of photo-sculptural works documenting traces of petroleum on asphalt, captured by the artist over several years across different cities.

Framed within warped glass—an amorphous material that can shift between liquid and solid states—Thackway’s images transform oil slicks into luminous, moving forms. These fuel blooms recall the astrophotographs of dying stars or the gleam of gemstones, situating surface beauty as an everyday trace of the violence of oil extraction and its environmental and geopolitical consequences. In this exchange, the iridescent slick traces the silhouette of a contemporary libation, where the volatility of depletion activates a sudden, charged resonance.

Shimmer explores moments of flux where material and essence intersect, refracting the delicate glimmer of a microcosmic universe of form and light, while grounding Thackway’s exploration in tactile radiance.