Henry Roy blends dream, observation, imagination and poetic resistance in a career spanning four decades. This first monograph draws on 40 years of memories and observations, bringing together 113 photographs taken between 1983 and 2023. The launch extends the artist’s exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, on view from 30 November 2024 to 18 May 2025.
His work, which spans his native Haiti, France, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Thailand, Tunisia and beyond, constructs a photographic worldview influenced by French modernism, New Wave aesthetics, Creolisation and Haitian spiralism. With his sunny style and animist sensibility, Roy gives power to all forms of life, creating transcendent moments that transcend time and space. His images evoke layered narratives that reject imperialistic frameworks, inviting viewers to linger, wonder and explore the limits of the visible, rich with poetic and philosophical depth.
Impossible Island delicately traces the career of Roy’s refined images in a kind of open narrative, accompanied by evocative and poetic texts by the artist and an essay by curator Robert Cook, to redefine art as a relational and transformative force, offering an enduring vision of interconnectedness and renewal.
