My work blurs any clear relation to the contemporary. I’m currently interested in the anachronistic form of ‘History Painting’ and enjoy exploiting a history of technologies, aiming to make images whose place in time and sense of belonging is uncertain.

I foster a subjective and emotional dialogue with images, refusing to deny the biographical investment of the artist in their production. I am uncomfortable pursuing prescribed rewards and outcomes for the artist and forced to speculate between a semi-conscious production of images and the self-consciousness of the 21st century artist. Part of the solution is to progress by looking back as my work mines a 30-year archive.

My work walks a line between overt reference to its manufacture and acknowledgement of the intangible or virtual essence of the photographic image. I seek a response to our increasingly virtual environment that goes beyond a simple and defensive fetishisation of ‘making’. To me the photographic image is precious and, while avoiding antiquarianism I take pains to uphold its unique and original qualities. Nevertheless, I work against established notions of the ‘good’ or ‘fine’ image, subverting both process and presentation. I aim to create a dialogue between the medium’s surface and its ‘depth’ (gravitas), between the bare fact of its material process and its ‘magic’.

Writing is also a mainstay for me and as a reviewer and essayist I publish on artists, exhibitions and cultural phenomena that complement and inform my practice by referring to image technologies, to history or preferably both.

To philosophically underpin questions emerging in my practice I completed a PhD at University of London entitled A Hesitation Of Things. I live and work in London, teaching at Chelsea, Goldsmiths, SOAS, Central St Martins and Camberwell colleges.

August 2011

email: pok(at)okpaul.com (replace (at) with @)