Kate Shaw’s work in the Luminous Worlds survey exhibition demonstrates an extraordinary convergence of art and science, navigating conceptual terrain more often occupied by physicists than painters. As Simon writes, Shaw's luminous, swirling panels reach into the realm of sub-atomic mystery—into the vast absence of "dark matter" that influences the movement of planets yet evades visual confirmation. Her canvases are radiant with an energy that seems alien to human creation, a visual echo of the mysteries being explored by the Large Hadron Collider. Through alchemical pours of resin and acrylic, Shaw offers viewers glimpses into forces not visible through microscope or telescope, but which might just be felt in the gut—a residue of the Big Bang, or the "throbbing electricity of the dawn of time."

What elevates Shaw’s work in Luminous Worlds is not just her manipulation of physical materials, but her ability to transport viewers into altered states of perception. In works like Ice Drift and Lava Lake, the physical properties of poured paint become metaphors for cosmic flux—paint behaves like plasma, ooze becomes glacier, and crystalline forms hover with quiet menace. Shaw’s landscapes echo cinematic science fiction—recalling Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stalker, where physical reality is distorted by unknown forces. Shaw doesn’t merely depict Icelandic terrain or elemental phenomena; she conjures “metaphysical experiences,” scenes where the absence of human presence allows for molecular or even galactic energies to emerge. As Simon Gregg suggests, these are not Earth-bound places, but thresholds where matter, memory, and fantasy dissolve.

In Shaw’s universe, as rendered through the Luminous Worlds exhibition, we are made acutely aware of how limited human perception is. Her paintings become portals—fluid, abstract, and beguiling—through which the viewer can contemplate events occurring in nanoseconds or across eons. Simon Gregg poetically describes this as standing “on the shore of that frozen lake,” caught in a moment between science fiction and metaphysical awe. It is here that Shaw excels: using the seductive, chemical unpredictability of paint to point toward cosmic truths. Her work is not a representation of nature, but a charged inquiry into the fabric of existence itself. In this, she reminds us that art, like science, is an act of imagining the unseen