Pak-Keung
Wan

Photographer's cloak (Black Hole), velvet construction, 190cm diam. Installation: The Art House, Wakefield, 2017









I have these thoughts of what it means to give birth to an image, or of images emerging from flesh; how the world may appear in the mind of a being within the womb.
This series of images have arisen by photographing the surface of a ground glass housed within a large format camera. Over time, I have come to see this instrument acting like a surrogate to a body's dark interior, in the rendering of colours and textures as a condition of looking through skin, or bodily fat.
The form of the eclipse found in my other works surfaces again, becoming embodied within the photographer's dark cloth. It envelops and provides a space in which to see a world, one that is upside down, or is that a feotal way up?
The idea of the photograph functioning as a form of maternal writing holds much meaning. Rather than projecting our thoughts out onto the world, I want these images to speak of a sense of return, to an internal space, entering through an orifice-like shutter.
I saw through him
Recently, the notion of the transparent body has begun to take hold, and this act of being 'seen through'.
In the figures I inhabit through the performing of Primal Scenes lies this tension and vulnerability to their existence; of being seen too readily or simply not seen at all. Such acts resonate with experiences being lived.

Installation view, c-type prints on wood supports, Josep Renau Gallery, Valencia, 2024
c-type prints on wooden supports
Part of the group exhibition, Delve,
Josep Renau Gallery, Valencia, 2024
The Art House gallery photographs by Jules Lister





