Poignant Pics no. 86: On John Hesketh's “Entanglement”
“Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.”
Entanglement
Earlier this month, I was a reviewer for the Los Angeles Center of Photography's Exposure Reviews. John Hesketh was the only male I spoke with, likely because I write a feature at FRAMES about female photographers. But that made John lucky— as he gets a solo feature.
His work was a series of black-and-white and color images called Passage and Release. Twelve years in the making, it is winding down now. Hesketh began the series upon his wife's cancer diagnosis. As her illness progressed, his world became ever smaller. The cathartic series shows a descent into sorrow, grief, and the gradual emergence of self. Now remarried, the latest works in the series use wild streaks of bold color to signify his re-emergence to life after grief and loss.
I was particularly drawn to the early black-and-white images of the series, like Entanglement, shown here. Usually, that would be because I like the emotional content of melancholic works. But this work is not that—it's different and curious. It almost appears to be a cross between an intaglio mezzotint and a photographic composite. Instead, it is a marking of time and emotion as light on a corded-off area of one of the outer walls of the house the couple inhabited together for 38 years. Hesketh uses multiple and extended exposures, often working in front of the camera to perform with light. While recording the event with his camera, his repetitious light patterning on the wall created the images.
Hesketh said, "The luminous moments of Passage are performances of contemplation and meditation, an experience of feeling the presence of absence. I called it her gone-ness. I challenged myself to create as many worlds as I could find in a single stucco wall on the side of our house. These marks of light became my quiet conversation with grief. Each moment resonated with my feelings of loss. After her passing, I returned to the same wall. What began as a creative escape became a process of letting go. The marks of light recorded on paper and vinyl became my transitional objects of healing. They helped me point the way to the next phase, and with that, I sold the house."
Thank you, John, for sharing your journey with us.
Artist Bio
John Hesketh (b.1955) is an artist based in Anaheim, California. He grew up in the photography studio his mother and father opened the day he was born. Hesketh has taught photography at Orange Coast College for 28 years and, more recently, at Santa Monica College. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. His art is found in many public and private collections, including Principal Financial (Des Moines, IA), the California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside, Maison Europeenne de la Photographie (Ville de Paris), and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
https://www.johnhesketh.com IG: @jchesketh
Author Bio
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.