
SPACE, INSCRIBED BY TIME: THE SNOWMAN BY PHIL SOLOMON
By Rushnan Jaleel
In Phil Solomon’s The Snowman (1995), water-logged home movies culled from an unknown archive are rephotographed to enhance their craquelure. The film evokes Wallace Steven’s eponymous poem and serves as a kaddish (a prayer of mourning) for the artist’s father. This would mark the second time that Solomon would memorialise a loved one through his work, with the first being Remains to be Seen (1998), which featured images of his mother on her deathbed. However there are almost no references to Solomon’s father (1) in The Snowman; he is buried in the emulsion of the film strip, under layers of corrugated memories.