249. Henry Lewis | Breathing over hair

Henry Lewis’ photograph is not so much a photograph of something as it is something constructed as a photograph. And while Henry is reluctant to discuss his process it’s easy to imagine his work being made on a computer in a program like photoshop where the limitations imposed by our physical reality don’t exist. In an interview about a previous body of work he said “I like the French word Bricolage which is the art of ‘do it yourself’, for me it is constructing an ephemeral piece from things that I find at hand and then, after photographic capture, its de-construction and demolition.” Here, as is the case with a great deal of art, the photograph doesn’t represent reality, it is a reality in its own right.

With this in mind the title of Henry’s work, Breathing over hair is surprisingly literal. There are photographs of hair here and over them, arranged in a sort of animated checkerboard, photographs of breath. More correctly they are photographs of the condensation within a breath, exhaled in a very cold place. Think of winter in France where Henry lived for many years or Bowral when he lives now. These are Henry’s breaths exhaled he said at about 14 times a minute, captured as a photograph before being given a “human” pink colouring and arranged in a manner that for me implies a pacing from one side of the picture to the next.

It’s hard not to think of there being a first breath that we understand to be accompanied by a cry and then a last breath that we hope is exhaled in silence. There might be the breath over hair in the passionate embrace of a lover or across the hair of another on our solitary rush hour train ride home. Here, as is the case with a great deal of art, literal meaning rests in an evocation of humanity, of breath and hair devoid of any instructive ideology or our pragmatic response to it.

Two similar works by Henry are included in an exhibition, Confluence at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, 26 April – 14 June. The catalogue essay observes, “There are 3 dimensions in Henry Lewis’ works. The first is the pictorial depth in which a single breath is represented…The second consists of the lines of surface composition in which each breath is set…the third is the rectangular shape also on the surface…One pictorial and two surface dimensions…an actual space and a map of breathing.” This is a constructed space as might be found in collage or bricolage or a contemporary digital version of it where the physical and conceptual constraints of reality do not apply. This reality is an invention.