Alchemy as photography - PHILIP POCOCK
Infinite Emptiness Will Be All Around You, 1989
THE MASTER OF FLUID LIGHT AND MOLTEN METALS, PHILIP POCOCK HAS MADE THE CIBACHROME TECHNIQUE HIS OWN, WITH HIS PSYCHEDELICALLY SURREAL EXPOSURES AN ILLUSION COME TO LIFE. WRITING AS HIS OWN CRITIC, HERE HE HOLDS A MIRROR UP TO HIS ART
The Currents Will Carry Us Away, 1989
Philip Pocock has “untied photography from its initial mission to produce a mirror of recognisable objects. He produces photography as such, photography pure, opening it to new vistas in a brilliant interplay of forms and colors, each specimen granting hallucinatory journeys into the new. His imaginations prove the inexhaustible richness of mastered craft and conjured fantasy.”
– Prof. Dr. L. Fritz Gruber, Gruber Collection, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
The Ring to Sing, 1989
“This alchemy as photography works by Berlin-based Canadian artist Philip Pocock poses a timely question: Is hallucination a valid form of perception? Cyberspace author William Gibson thought so. He coined ‘cyberspace’ as a ‘consensual hallucination shared daily by millions. Also working as a digital artist, Pocock is aware of this virtual reality. Still his love of photography as material led him to experiment with the Swiss Cibachrome deluxe photographic material for its real silver shadows and patinas, and the purest, psychedelic clothing color dyes on the planet.
He produces phantasmic portraits of the photograph itself–a polished surface with a true sense of 3D; molecules of silver coagulating, interacting with the color pigments exploding in bursts, streaming, rivulets of chemicals etching out other hues and tones. The Cibachromes appear to possess both an atomic microscopic and dizzying astronomical scale. The photograph becomes a painting of a photograph in the act of becoming itself. No light, no optical image, Philip Pocock paints these works in full daylight.”
CREDITS
by PHILIP POCOCK
All images courtesy of Philip Pocock and INDA Gallery
