Kantor

Part of Those Who Were There.

The second body of work within Those Who Were There centres on the extraordinary story of Alfred Kantor.

Kantor's journey through the Second World War is one of almost unbelievable survival. Yet his story is much more than that. Through his experiences, and through the paintings and drawings he created, he left behind a remarkable visual document of what Jewish people found themselves living through during the Holocaust.

The more I have researched this period, the more I have come to realise just how enormous and complex the Holocaust was. It was not a single event, but an immense system of procedures, organisations, decisions and plans, all working together. There were countless moving parts, and in many places those wheels were turning in frightening synchronisation. Kantor's work provides a deeply personal visual record of that machinery and, perhaps more importantly, of the people caught within it.

His story also highlights something that can sometimes be difficult to understand from a modern perspective: the experience of Jewish people living outside the areas of Eastern Europe most commonly associated with the Holocaust. Propaganda, misinformation and the gradual normalisation of persecution played an important role. For many, the reality of what was happening was difficult to comprehend until it was too late.

After discovering Kantor's book, I became fascinated not only by his story, but by the places within it. I began a personal pilgrimage to locate the places he painted and to photograph them as they exist today.

By returning to these locations, I am attempting to create a visual dialogue between Kantor's experience and the present day - placing his paintings alongside the landscapes and buildings that remain.

This body of work is still in progress.