Pierced Metal Screen Inside Confessional c. 1936

This metal screen inside a confessional, delicately rendered in watercolor by Geoffrey Holt, looks like a site of concentrated meditation. I imagine Holt sitting there, trying to record the exact pattern in the piercings, the particular brown of the metal, all under the subdued light. There’s something inherently philosophical about this pursuit. It seems like he may have been thinking about the dialogue between what’s hidden and what’s revealed. Maybe the screen is a symbol of the confessional itself, a place where secrets are both concealed and disclosed. I can imagine he was thinking, what does it mean to see and be seen, to know and be known? Holt, like any artist, becomes part of the visual conversation that stretches across centuries. It's a process of call and response, influencing and being influenced. And in that, we find echoes of human experiences, the struggles, the joys, the never-ending quest to understand ourselves and each other.