The Photograph as Architecture? The photograph captured reality much more easily than previous media; painting for example. But the still photograph has been overtaken by the moving image; after all the world is not static. A photo nailed the moment with light but the moment moves on. If the photo can not capture the world in all its many many moments, whats the purpose of photography? For a photographer what is the option? To build a world within the camera perhaps, one whose moments only occur when faced with the lens, a world that is woken up by the flash?

Montreal born Holly King manufactures her worlds inside the scope of her camera. She is the architect of an idealized landscape, of an artful landscape, one trained into being for her gaze. The resultant image is then shot and shared with us in all its depth, vastness and hugeness. This is no trickery, King is honest about her process. Two of her image boxes are present at her mid-career retrospective exhibit at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. Beyond the boxes the show is comprised of four of her most recent series: Twisted Roots, Mangroves: Floating Between Two Worlds, Grand Canyon: Unscene and the recently completed English Cliffs series.

The wonderful Forest of Enchantment series is not included but seek it out in her accompanying book titled "Holly KIng: Edging Towards The Mysterious" available at the Gallery. The landscapes photographed are as if Tom Thompson took Dali along on the camp and canoe trip. These worlds do not exist but the photograph brings them into existence. They are as real as any other image you see daily on those little devices in your hot hands, you just have to learn to trust the source.

Holly King, Into the Mist, photograph, 2012