Traces of Light
The phenomenon of light has always been imbued with symbolic and metaphorical meaning particularly within the history of art. Light establishes temporal rhythms experienced over a period of time. It's transient nature is experienced further in the gradual fading of light to dark. Light, thus becomes the motif of an entire literary and philosophical epoch: in the works of the 'Jacobi Park Series' by Steve Hollingsworth the light of the 'Enlightenment' becomes entwined with a dialogue including the artistic and artificial light of the present.
The now romantically overgrown Jacobi Park, in which Hollingsworth produced a video and several photographic works dates back to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, a man of letters and philosophy of the late 18th Century. As Freemason and Illuminati (!) he cultivated a literary philosophical circle in his house, among his guests were such great minds as Goethe, Klopstock and von Humboldt.
Knowingly or unknowingly the colourful patterns of light in the photographs resonate with these past presences of historic and intellectual importance. Beyond the purely formal reading they form traces of an artistic existence, whose author is not shown. Something ghostly emanates from the light phenomena, delicate and transient - further traces of light in the history of the park.
Michael Voets