Toby Short
'holes' are a series of large-scale painted plaster reliefs depicting excavations in Athens They invite us to look and yet at the same time may even repel us with images seemingly lacking in beauty or interest. These spaces show views which exist outside contemporary life hidden behind hoardings and sandwiched between tall buildings. They are generally inaccessible to the public and the alien environment holds no attraction for the visitors. Consequently these places become like oases in the city . Places where the complexities of everyday living are stripped away to reveal the raw material of everything , space . Gaps between the buildings and voids in the earth expose the nothingness. I am drawn to these places, which are like glitches in a computer program; momentary lapses in the ceaseless regeneration of the city, where we can see once more bare earth and open space, the exposed raw material from which all the rest of the visible creation around us has sprung.
