This series of photographic works consist of three parts. Each part contains six images. Part i was shown at The Graves Art gallery in 2002 as part of a group show, ‘Surface’. The entire series was shown at the MAC in Birmingham in 2003. The prints each measure 1m x 1.2 m.
In these new works, the use of transparency, translucency and shadow is apparent. Objects are positioned both in front of and behind a diffusing screen. Light is used to both sharpen and diffuse the focus on certain objects, and this is contrasted with drawing, applied colour, drips of paint and dense networks of graphically incised markings. The adoption of theatrical modes of lighting seen here marks a departure from the descriptive clarity and opacity of her earlier photographic prints.
The title is taken from Shakespeare’s Sonnet no. 18; ‘Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines’. The eye of heaven is the sun and the heat of the summer can disappear all too soon, as can the beauty of the man (or woman) Shakespeare is referring to; all perfect things must decline from that state of perfection. But now, with the words forever on the page, there is an immortality about the transient moment.
Holland wants to capture the power of strong, but ultimately transient emotions. As seen in her previous work, ‘Magic, Murder and the Weather’ Holland presents a series of narrative fragments, which represent the unfolding of a story. In these new works, this is concerned with a state of being, a personal and specific response, which incorporates a blurring of distinctions between physical fact of the silhouetted object and fictional allusion.
Images from Eye of Heaven series and installation view at MAC, Birmingham