ABOUT THE WORK
Blaise Cole's images of saints are made by cutting voids into black tulle, and then aligning layers of tulle onto a white ground to create an image of the person.
The tulle looks like a shadow, and is cut in patterns to imitate the shapes of the shadows recorded on film when a photograph was taken in the presence of the saint.
But the tulle, even as it imitates the shadows in the photograph, casts a real shadow on the white ground. This creates an experience of seeing the work that, ironically, cannot be captured by a photograph.
Blaise Cole takes a deeper dive into the inspiration for and process behind the work in this video, discussing the history, theory & practice of the work as well as a testimonial.
0:00 - History: Paintings of saints in the Catholic Church
2:29 - Theory: The promise of and the problem with photographs
5:28 - Testimonial: Father Ben Green
8:05 - Practice: How these works are made
Filmed mostly aboard the artist's sailboat, where he lived with his wife and four children for the better part of the decade, it's a scrappy little video that doesn't have the best production quality. But sometimes we imagine artists living and working in a drafty garret in order to give all of their time to their work...the sailboat, at anchor in the inland waters of coastal Florida, was just such a place for Cole and his family—where the work could be made without compromise to arrive at a vision that catches, however fleetingly, some glimpse of truth.
