The Wonderful World of Crystals

The Wonderful World of Crystals

Lyson ink on Lyson paper (archival). 182 x 91 cm. 2005.

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In my studio amongst the various images pinned up there is a small photograph of the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau as the Holocaust is something that is ever at the back of my mind. I have always wanted to make a piece of work about the subject but have not known how to. I felt that it was not possible to go beyond the film and photographic evidence to convey the horror; the subject could not be turned into art other than in an oblique way.

It was only last year that I came across the work of a pioneering photographer called W.A. Bentley who was the first man to isolate and photograph individual snow crystals and spent a lifetime doing so. The idea of juxtaposing the two images came to me.

The title The Wonderful World of Crystals is obviously meant to be ironic. The delicate, intricate and individual crystals that coalesce to make each snowflake are manifestations of the beauty of the natural world. The entrance to the camp is under a soft, white blanket of snow which also covers the discarded shoes, bowls, spoons etc - the detritus of the victims.

I see the work not as a specific statement about the horror perpetrated upon the Jewish peoples of Europe but rather as a piece that reflects on the capacity for Man’s inhumanity to Man that sadly continues to this day.