Philipp Hölke

Art

BEAUTIFUL SURFACES, TERRIBLE DEPTHS

A white skull under a pink halo on cobalt, watching Satan fall like lightning — the pretty surface and the drop underneath sharing one sheet.

A cobalt-blue field topped by a hot-pink band, a white halo radiating black ticks above a white-line skull with crossed-out eyes and a barred grin; at left, white capitals read I WAS WATCHING SATAN FALL FROM HEAVEN LIKE LIGHTNING, and below, NO ESCAPE.

A skull in white line, eyes crossed through, teeth a grate, sits under a halo that is only a circle with ticks coming off it — more antenna than blessing. The ground is cobalt; a strip of pink along the top is the beautiful surface the title names, thin enough to be a lid.

I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

Luke’s line, written down the left like a caption for the drop. No escape is tucked under the jaw, smaller, as if the depths had added their own footnote. The halo stays on. The fall is what the surface is for.