Victoria Holland
BA (Hons) Fine Art
Printmaking and Installation
‘Cities are always on the verge of ruin. If maintenance of the built environment ceases, it inevitably slides towards decay. This tendency for all materials to degrade over time is known as entropy’
– Paul Dobraszczyk (2019)
Observing the apocalyptic change that Covid-19 brought to the city, where buildings began to fall into disrepair, Victoria’s obsession with urban ruin and decay began to develop. Additionally, Victoria also experienced the rebuild, as lockdowns and infection waves eased.
Within her practice, Victoria explores this through the mass production of printmaking. Creating, layering, then destroying, repeating, manipulating, then remaking symbolises the entropic city and the continuous cycle of life. It is a way of dissecting the past and facing up to our own fragility, through understanding that in some way or another, life and signs of past life will continue.
Victoria's current work has taken direct inspiration from volunteering at the National Trust Castlefield Viaduct in Manchester, a structure that, until 2022, remained abandoned for over half a century. Her prints and models focus on the repetitive geometric shapes used to form the Viaduct’s structure.
Through installation, these fragile, yet resilient, individual paper sculptures made from various printmaking techniques are stacked on top of each other to create a sense of entropy. The prints act as a trace of history. They symbolise rubble from ruins, the desire to rebuild, and to memorialise memories.
