Graham Head: ‘A Book of (W)holes, or, the Dead Looking Back‘

2006 Graham Head's installation 'A Book of (W)holes' incorporates media from photographs to found objects, and from monumental stonemasonry to watercolour painting. The installation is akin to a modern memorial where we can commune with those lost, and where old photographs become, in the artist's words, "metaphorical passports to gain entry to the realm of the dead".

The sequence of works begins with enlarged passport photographs printed onto paper and hung overhead. The sitters' features dissolve in light like memories partially obliterated by time. Alongside, a monumental acrylic 'book' rests on the gallery floor, whose ten tinted sheets reflecting the full spectrum of coloured light around the gallery. On each page excerpts of elegiac poetry have been screenprinted, offering us a library of quotations about remembrance and mortality.