Christian Holstad, Defending Decisions, 2005, pencil on newspaper
These seven works on paper belong to an ongoing series known as the ‘Eraserhead’ drawings. Ordinary black-and-white photographs are cut from newspapers; leaving large parts untouched, Holstad carefully erases the ink from other areas to create ghostly, ambiguous voids, rendering their subjects – political figures, landscapes, interiors – deformed and isolated. In their place, details are added in pencil to contort, warp and dramatically recontextualize the original image. This technique, married to the scale and fragile nature of the works, generates a tremendous and highly personal pathos, evoking feelings of loss and fear, and threatening our faith in and experience of media imagery.
