Dissected Beauty

About

Jo Holland works on the borders between photography and painting, employing the techniques of both to create images that belong to neither medium. Holland makes photographs without the intermediary of either camera or negative, directly exposing the object through the lense onto what becomes a unique ilfochrome print. In this respect her work goes against the grain of much of contemporary photographic practice, which is dominated by the reproducibility of the medium and its digital manipulation.

Focusing instead on the line between attraction and repulsion in the viewer's response, the objects of Holland's gaze include pig eyes, rotting pears, lamb hearts, sheep brains and, in her recent series, the human placenta. Having dissected the object, Holland arranges the resulting cross-sections on a glass plate, onto which, in her more recent images, she introduces glazes and blocks of colour, creating a hybrid form of image-making between photography and painting. Acquiring from this process the presence and aura of a unique work of art, the resulting images reveal a hidden, fleeting and often violent beauty where we least expect to find it.

This exhibition is Holland's first retrospective, and a unique chance to see works from her fourteen years as a professional artist.