About the project

The Hole (2013) is a photographic artist book made of 12 colour portraits shot in a sealed, lightless space. A single beam of light carves each face out of the darkness, turning the subjects into fragments, apparitions, or quiet revelations. The project explores themes of darkness, rupture, and the psychological tension between exposure and concealment — elements that resonate with different parts of my practice. 

The Hole

Text by Christos Kalos

Stergios Pardalos, in the photographic series “The Hole”, by selecting the method of typology attempts to make a journey in the traces of the fascinating realism. The photographed people are depicted immersed in a shut dark place without any specific space-time references, while a dramatized light from above not only brings their figures to prominence but it also distorts them. By using a few expressive means like light and shadow, Stergios Pardalos makes a reference to the western painting tradition appropriating the technique of chiaroscuro and he creates images which exude a religious and enigmatic feel since they seem to move from reality to imaginariness.
”The Hole” returns to the discussion about the need of metaphysic in a mechanistic world even if it is a game of the mind or even if it is a moment in a basement where the light penetrates and breaks by accident the dull crust of the familiarity.