Dan Holdsworth

I remember seeing a reproduction of Untitled 1999 from the series A Machine for Living, where a complex road network at some fairly generic edge-of-town development had been photographed with a longer exposure time that had filled the image with light – a lot more light than would ordinarily be plausible. Therefore – I guess, I must have concluded that here’s one of those photographers who leaves his lens open for a while. I recognise this technique as one regularly employed by commercial photographers, whose clients want them to iron out the blemishes or address the lack of interest in a particular subject. A housing development, which is actually entirely everyday, can strive for a little charisma, and by the same means a slightly tired old building can accrue a bit more pizazz.

As time moved forward I came across more of Dan Holdsworth’s work and a rationale began to unfold, remarkable interiors, photographs documenting remote and inhospitable places where I don’t get to go to, images made at the time of day when I’m sleeping: the things I miss when left to my own devices. Initially, there appears to be an analytical commitment continuing through the work, not quite National Geographic but certainly making use of our shared inclination to consume remarkable revelations of the world. These kinds of images seduce us into taking a long hard look in pursuit of what we assume to be new knowledge, an eye-opener, an expansion of our personal visual lexicon. I don’t mind Dan Holdsworth’s photographs being beautiful, they are and exquisitely so, but what I am reminded of by this observation is that I am looking at his photograph and not the mountain range, or a Californian freeway, or whatever else his photographs might represent. Sooner or later this brings me to the old chestnut about the difference between looking and seeing, and it is here where Dan Holdsworth’s work finds its momentum.

Truth and reality is a well-trodden path in photography’s history let alone its use within the context of contemporary art. From Jeff Wall’s infinitesimally orchestrated images of the artificial moment in time, to Thomas Demand’s photographs of carefully crafted cardboard surrogates, there is an inclination for the image to reward the viewer for persisting with a grain of disbelief. Dan Holdsworth makes images that are unremittingly engaging and that appeal is located at the balance point between the picture and what is pictured. What is especially compelling is the synthesis between the two and how it is so effectively constructed. The result enables the viewer to glide into a space where a remarkable subject stops and a beguiling depiction begins.

Godfrey Worsdale, Director, MIMA, Middlesbrough

Biography
Dan Holdsworth was born in 1974. He graduated with a BA Hons in Photography from London College of Printing in 1998. His solo exhibitions include ‘Ultravisitor’ Patricia Low Contemporary, Gstaad, Switzerland (2007); ‘White Noise’ STORE, London (2007); ‘Geographics’ MIMA, Middlesbrough (2007); ‘The Edge of Space, Parts 1-3’ Stills Gallery Edinburgh (2007) and National Maritime Museum, London (2006); ‘Dan Holdsworth’ New Art Gallery Walsall (2002); ‘The World in Itself’ Barbican Art Gallery, London (2001); ‘Dan Holdsworth’ Kohji Ogura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan (2001). Forthcoming shows include ‘Night’ Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, ‘Bienal de Lanzarote (Islas Canarias)’ Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo de Lanzarote, Spain. Holdsworth is based in Darlington.