Architecture is in many ways, the most social of human endeavors. It combines the knowledge of science and skill of the builder with the human need for shelter and sanctuary. Architecture has become the embodiment of society's goals as expressed for the individual. As a species we have evolved our dwelling needs from the spot of protection for the individual, be it cave or bush, to the many and varied forms of dwellings that we call house and home. With few exceptions these structures provide us the sanctuary we need, and the same time allow us to communicate both physically and visually with our fellows. This duality of open and closed seems at the heart of the social implications of our buildings. A door ajar is indeed a powerful symbol of this dual nature. When we bolt our doors, shutter our windows, bar all means of intercourse with society, for whatever reasons, we alter the balance we have established within this private/public, open/closed social agreement that we have made. To take this public symbol of our private needs and close its eyes, negating the struggles of civilization, is to retreat to the nervous safety of the cave. When human beings are forced to close out the society they have created in order to physically survive, it is cause for the deepest alarm in all of us. As someone whose primary engagement with the world is visual, I am stunned by what this closed city of Belfast must do to all of the senses of its inhabitants. I am caused to contemplate the ways in which this tyrannical visual oppression must inform each decision, made to realize the implications of causing a generation to be born into this environment, an indelible visual heritage. To look at Belfast, Northern Ireland is to see a society so torn from its fundamental goals that one does not need to know the politics to be thoroughly shaken and made afraid. It is the unrelenting visual manipulation of the people caught in this situation that I address with these sculptures. As a sculptor these reliefs function as black and white photographs. The visual inspiration has been the photographs of Belfast in newspapers and books. No doors, no windows, no openings left unguarded. Every thing seems closed and afraid. As an artist they function as a political statement, an aside from my major work. An invitation for you to share my views through a visual dialogue. As a human they say that I want peace for a people who have suffered needlessly for too long.

Douglas Holmes 

San Francisco, California 1983