Paradise, Canto XXX: The river of light, from the series Illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy

This photograph from the late 1980s is from a series of twelve Polaroid photographs relating directly to Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. Each work is a carefully constructed scene illustrating a particular canto. Technically the artist has made the most of the cumbersome 20 x 40 inch Polaroid camera, using it to render exquisite detail and to capture subtle colour. She cuts and moulds aluminium soft-drink cans to form menacing vegetation, human figures, creatures from beyond the grave, on the journey through Hell and Purgatory to Paradise. Hall photographs them amongst found objects set against backgrounds which she has painted.