Arch Hades’ We Are All Just Passing Through gleams like a mirage — sharp, mirrored, and meticulously composed. At first, it feels ethereal, almost mournful; but look closer and it’s about control. Not death, not despair, but the containment of feeling — anger held still, beauty disciplined, emotion rendered with surgical precision.
The palette stays tight: black, white, grey, deep blue. Everything shines. Surfaces are clean, edges exact, reflections perfectly aligned. It’s a world where nothing spills. There’s a trace of Middle Eastern modernism here — that 1980s mirrored glamour meets the geometry of the desert — refracted through a sci-fi lens. Ancient symbols remade in chrome; the pyramids rebuilt in light.
Hades’ figures and ruins exist somewhere between myth and machine. They feel both sacred and futuristic, like relics from a civilisation that mistook its gods for aliens. Each work shimmers with that tension — organic emotion sealed within luminous control.
Her engraved frames act like circuitry for feeling. “Love is felt most when it’s leaving.” “I wonder if you feel it, when I’m dreaming of you?” The phrases don’t pour out; they hover, coded and calm. Every line holds its temperature.
In Rain, a figure balances between surrender and survival, its stillness more charged than collapse. The Confession Series turns private fragments — once crumpled notebook pages — into polished relics. Even Murmuring Bark, a forest of whispering trees, filters vulnerability through design. Emotion here is managed, not released.
Visually, the show drifts between surrealism and retro-futurism: part Dali dream, part Ballard dystopia, part mirrored palace in the desert. It’s beautiful, but it’s also watchful — emotion reflected back in perfect symmetry.
And yet, beneath all that shine, there’s tenderness. The precision feels protective, not cold. We Are All Just Passing Through isn’t a cry; it’s a meditation. Every surface gleams, every feeling measured, but you sense the pulse underneath — the quiet ache of someone holding chaos still just long enough to understand it.
In Hades’ world, control isn’t a wall; it’s a way of caring. Beneath the silver and shadow, emotion breathes softly — steady, deliberate, alive.
Curated by Lee Sharrock
Arch Hades, We Are All Just Passing Through – 21st December 2025, 8 Berkley Square @archhades
All installation images by © Eva Herzog
