Eyal Pinkas
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Work from the series Covers.
“Under the conditions of the camera, objects and spaces reveal themselves in a gentle process of exposure. They perform a change, showing gradually different potential appearances that assumingly originate in their own fantasies. This search for the objects’ imaginable worlds within different surroundings has become a constant departure point for my work.
The investigation on this conceptual strategy is divided in my working practice to two main methods, which are finalized and presented as series of photographic images and occasionally as video work.
In one way of working, I physically alter the structure and form of a given object, or as a parallel system, I change the order and appearance of an existing space. A bed for example, becomes a vessel by dismantling its turned into a theatrical stage when the chairs and tables are repositioned in arrangements that resemble a dance.
As a second way, I document my subjects without any physical interference. For instance, the rooms and objects of an army museum’s depot are depicted in photographs as vivid entities. In that case, the medium’s characteristics are used to represent the sleeping objects as expressive beings.
In both methods I approach the making of an image by physically and psychologically responding to the space I am working in, which is usually an interior. The rooms become for me a frame or a three-dimensional canvas where a certain directed activity of the subjects is performed. I perceive the room as a camera and the camera as a room; metaphorically – my work is done in the camera.
As an artist I want to create a world inhabited by objects captured in a state of conflict between their inner and the exterior realities. Performing a playful behavior can fill the existential gap that is created as a result of this conflict. On a visual level this behavior leads to forms of disguise and transformation. Even chairs, mattresses or wallpapers can be seen as costumes. As always, costumes represent the realm of the imaginary.
As a subject matter, I would like my work to be an allegory to this sensitive state of awareness.” – Eyal Pinkas