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Holly King
Ascent to the Edge

2011

$6,000
£4,524.03
€5,213.31
CA$8,323.62
A$9,326.57
CHF 4,854.84
MX$114,096.29
NOK 61,623.17
SEK 58,202.34
DKK 38,918.43
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About the Item

Holly King’s photographs draw from memories of landscapes, and reference film, art and literature. Her images are cinematic and striking, seemingly real and other-worldly. She painstakingly constructs these scenes with miniatures and then takes photographs of them in large-format, which she then exhibits. King claims that the actual sets are very humble, and the process of photographing these sets transforms them into artworks, although I believe that the sets themselves may be sights to be seen. In 2005, King moved from working with color photography to black and white. The objects contained in these photographs (the trees, stones, water and brush) are detailed rather than creating atmospheric scapes that were ethereal and less linked to actual inhabitable spaces, as she has in earlier works. With this most recent series, Grand Canyon: Unseen, King tackles the monumental cleft in the Arizona desert that has captivated tourists and writers alike for so many years. King takes a place that has been photographed, documented, discussed and memorialized and manages to create novel images, which is no small feat. For the first time in her oeuvre, she combines photographs of the land with her set ups, and additionally integrates black ink drawings. She suspends transparent images of the Grand Canyon behind the sets, and places miniatures in both the foreground and behind the transparencies. Her prints are reflective, luminous, pensive terrains of rock, earth and sky. It has been said that the size of King’s prints allows people to enter the unreal places that she creates. I think that viewers are only allowed to step to the precipice of these landscapes, see their tiny details and be overwhelmed by their heights, but then they are held back. They must stop to think about what they see. The power of these images lies in the fact that they warrant a second look, and a third. They are the type of photographs that I want to try to enter over and over because of where I could be transported were I to enter.
  • Creator:
    Holly King (1957, Canadian)
  • Creation Year:
    2011
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 64 in (162.56 cm)Width: 36 in (91.44 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Montreal, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU476123632

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Text by Amber Berson Canadian photographer Holly King’s Mangrove series is an investigation into the artist’s own subconscious. The photographs border on the uncanny, although never uncomfortably so. Instead, her preternatural compositions engage the viewer’s curiosity – the viewer is not sure how to approach, and yet is drawn to do so. At times the images are reflective, occasionally disquieting and always thought provoking. The twisted roots of the mangrove forests that form the base of this series provide an entry point for an investigation into the shadowy parts of the artist’s imagination. The differences between what we know to be real and what we perceive as real are often slight. The work of Holly King stems from an attempt to prevail over the uncharted territory of both her imagination and that which is perceived as true. In her creations, King endeavours to understand her subconscious mindscape as manifested through photographs recalling actual landscapes. This new series, stemming from earlier pieces also focused on roots, reflects King’s interest in drawing, in the linear subject and in geometric abstraction. It is a move away from previous series – despite the photographic medium in which King works, her oeuvre has contained a certain painterly quality. These new photographs tend to melt into themselves, drawing the viewer in and letting the imagination drift. The Mangrove series causes the viewer to approach with at a slower pace, to investigate deeply into the darker nooks and crannies and to attempt to find reason within a work that so clearly plays with our understanding of real and imaginary. Nothing is incidental in King’s photographs, yet it is not always manipulated. King’s process often involves the use of maquettes – not digital manipulation of the images – creating an eerily surreal image that seem both familiar and strange. Her photos go beyond setting up the angle and vantage point of the shot; they force us to try to see things as the artist does by their very nature. In her own way, King follows in the footsteps of other notable Canadian landscape artists...
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