By Rebecca Stevenson
Chicken wire. Plaster. Crumpled paper. Twigs.
These raw materials are hardly titillating or mystical on their own. But in the hands of Montreal photographer Holly King, they are moulded and transformed into mythical worlds where magic is just around the corner.
Fifteen of King’s photographs are currently on display at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography until Jan 17. The exhibit, appropriately called Landscapes of the Imagination, is but a sampling of the artist’s 12- year career. Most of the images are in colour, but some of the more foreboding ones are in black and-white.
What makes King’s work distinct is the subject matter she focuses on. Instead of photographing humans or nature, she constructs and records elaborate sets bathed in richly coloured light. When presented as two-dimensional prints, the sets appear to be life-sized landscapes.
She took her master’s degree in performance art and studio fine arts at York University, then took to building sets for her own presentations. This ultimately led to her photographic explorations.
“I guess that eventually I took the figures out of the images and concentrated on making the sets more elaborate but also smaller,” says King.
In order to infuse her sets with an otherworldly quality, King decided to photograph them with special lighting.
The sets, built in her home studio, are tabletop in size. The highest objects are about a foot tall. She uses everyday materials and painted backdrops to create her fantastic scenes.
“It’s a very detailed, exacting process. I very often photograph a set 60 to 70 times and I’m continuously manipulating the lighting and the props,” she says.
Personal experience, research, literature, film and mythology all provide inspiration for King’s sets. Once she has an idea, she makes a sketch and proceeds to construct her vision using the chosen objects.
Each body of work she has done depicts landscapes using a different emotion-based point of view.
Her most recent collection, The Forests of Enchantment, deals with magical places that are at once comforting and disturbing.
One photograph in this collection depicts an animated forest veiled by a twisting, black curtain of sorts.
“One would expect it to be optimistic, for the enchantment to be a good thing, but in this case there are these black veils or some kind of ominous screen that comes in between you and the forest,” says King of the piece.
Wind and water are common themes in King’s photographs. They help to create the sense that the landscapes are animated and alive. King says they are not meant to be perfect illusions, but recognizably fabricated. In any case, they have drawn attention as unique pieces of art.
“I think there may be more of a theatrical sense and an emotional edge to the work I’m doing compared to other people. The type of lighting creates atmosphere moods,” she says.
Nicole Berthomieu, who visited the Museum of Contemporary Photography from France, was impressed by King’s work.
“When you look at them, you just feel like a child. They are strange pictures, but you feel safe in them,” she said.
This is the first time King’s work has been shown at the CMCP on its own. As an individual, she exhibited at Ottawa’s SAW Gallery, but that was several years ago and new additions have since been made to her collection.
The CMCP has been working on bringing King’s work to their walls for several years, said the exhibit’s curator, Paul Dessureault.
“The work is strong and good. She’s been at it for a number of years and I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this work has a place in contemporary Canadian photography.”