Who’s Afraid of Light, 2026

Carl Gustav Jung tells us that within the human psyche there is a quest to realize oneself as a human being, to grow in consciousness and to achieve what Hindus call the "Self."

He tells us that we all have this capacity to encounter the "luminous," that is, to be overwhelmed by an emotion, a feeling, that prompts us to contemplate the mystery of the world, a form of encounter with the absolute.

According to Jung, there is not only the “ego,” the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. There is also the “Self,” which is a kind of unifying principle of the human psyche, but which cannot be reduced to the ego or the unconscious. And so, the Self—we could say “the spirit”—is something within us that cannot necessarily be reduced to the brain and matter.

It is the Self that pushes the unconscious and the conscious to dialogue with each other, to try to grow towards a kind of finality that is completeness, to which every human being aspires, what Jung calls the process of “individuation.” Jung is very Nietzschean in his idea that there is a power within us that drives us to realize and fulfill ourselves, with a kind of artistic dimension that pushes us to be creative and allows us to realize ourselves in a unique way.

Individualism is when an individual, driven by their ego, lives in an individualistic way and does not care about others.

On the other hand, with individuation, the individual becomes fully themselves, beyond all needs for social recognition and all the personal injunctions they received in childhood (“Be this, be that!”). Having become fully themselves, individuals will be much better connected to others and will therefore be much more loving and altruistic.

My series Who's Afraid of Light deals with this potential to encounter the “light” that we all have within us. This series is an attempt to contemplate the mystery of the world, to encounter the absolute.

- Stéphane Ducret

Stéphane Ducret
Untitled (from the Who’s Afraid of Light series)
2026
Oil on wood board
30,6 x 24,7 x 3,3 cm | 12 x 9 ¾ x 1 ⅓ inches