ISBN: 9781926589893
Language: English and French
Publication editor: Linda Jansma & Francine Paul
For twenty five years Holly King has been creating photographic works that are immediately recognizable for their integration of numerous other disciplines, particularly painting, sculpture and scenography. Working from models and miniature sets that are powerfully illuminated and then photographed, King’s imposing large-scale photographs offer an intimate vision of perfect landscapes that hover between memories of real places and nostalgia for imaginary sites. Historical, cinematographic and painterly references – notably Caspar Hauser Friedrich and JW Turner – abound in her richly detailed works. This ten-year mid-career retrospective is comprised of four of her most recent series: Twisted Roots, Mangroves: Floating Between Two Worlds, Grand Canyon: Unscene and the recently completed English Cliff series. King states that her photographs are a “celebration of sublime beauty in nature” aware that her goal is not the dominant trend in contemporary art.
Holly King’s photographs have been widely shown, notably at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. She has been teaching in the Painting and Drawing Department of Montreal’s Concordia University since 1983. This monograph is the first major overview of her work in nearly two decades and accompanies an exhibition that will travel the country during 2016 and 2017. Published in collaboration with Thames Art Gallery, Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke, Galerie Art Mûr, and Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent.
