Asa and Hilary Irons grew up in New Hampshire. As children they lived without electricity and relied on kerosene and candle light to navigate through the night. “West of the Moon” is a show about what these siblings learned in their early years. How nature regains its autonomy in the darkness. How animals move freely, knowing they are outside of human perception. Trees continue their silent respiration. Rivers keep flowing. All without the audience of human kind except for the few who wish to witness the subtle brilliance by adjusting their eyes to the weak light of the moon.

The landscape of their New England hometown is transformed in Asa’s black and white night photos. Traditional notions of black and white are reversed and we are witness to what the world might look like if humans suddenly ceased to exist. One can hear the quiet babbling brook, the rustling of the near bare trees, and the wind moving the clouds swiftly overhead. The trees come alive and appear to move into our personal space, disrupting the traditional relationship between man and nature.

In Hilary’s paintings we continue to see the power of the world of and plants and animals amplified by the darkness; at the time of the greatest human weakness. Wildcats move freely past excavating equipment and caves open out behind trees, untroubled by the distant rumble of the highway. She uses thick and bold black lines to create her imagery, like the dark shadows we might see at midnight. Colors splash within these lines as if the subjects were suddenly illuminated by lantern.

In “West of the Moon” Hilary and Asa Irons let us in on the secrets of the un-electrified natural world. Although most of us sleep through this period, comfortably wrapped up in our warm blankets, outside the nocturnal universe thrives and returns to what can only be the closest thing to a pre-industrialized world.