Stan Dickinson, New Photographic Chemistry

Last Friday and Saturday I had the pleasure of visiting Stan Dickinson's exhibition of his Level 3 Body of Work, New Photographic Chemistry.  I went with my wife to the preview on the Friday evening and then returned again on the Saturday for the OCA event.  Friday was busy and bustling with a good number of people enjoying the show.  Saturday was a quieter affair with a small group of OCA students discussing Stan's work.  As Stan is a member of our peer led 'hangout group' I had seen the work develop over the last eighteen months and, although I knew the work and its background well, I had only seen the work on screen, so it was both interesting and a pleasure to see the work printed (very large in one particular case) and presented as a gallery exhibition.

The starting point for Stan's work was an old book on photographic chemistry that he discovered in a second hand bookshop.

He then proceeded to deconstruct the book, finally dismembering it completely.  Not being from an analogue photography background, Stan admits to the book being something of a foreign language to him.  He used photography and digital manipulation to produce something entirely new, often bright and colourful abstract images that might be likened to pop art or be found in a wallpaper catalogue.  He also reworked pages of text to produce yet more intriguing images.  He generally began with a picture, diagram or graph, photographed it and then 'played' with the image digitally in order to produce patterns which he then coloured in photoshop.  Finally Stan used his own images to reconstruct the book rebinding it to create 'New Photographic Chemistry'.  In the outcome, Stan says, signifier is torn from signified and re-presented, often enhanced and multiplied, in a seductive, hyper-real simulation.

I felt that the exhibition worked well.  It was well organised and well presented and comprised a variety of visual experiences.  Both his 'seductive' images were shown, mounted on pvc, along with framed examples of his work with the text.  One image occupied most of one wall and was printed on self-adhesive vinyl.  There was a museum type display of the reconstructed books and other artifacts as well as a video installation.  I was fascinated by the way that he moved from a book of photographic chemistry (a foreign language, he says) to his final outcome and I was amazed at the vision and imagination this must have entailed.

On the Saturday our small group discussed the work with Stan.  I have to say that my main fascination was for the idea and the process that Stan went through, but we spent quite some time discussing what we read into the outcome; what it meant to us.  We touched on Roland Barthes 'Death of the author' and the fact that what Stan had produced meant to the viewer what ever they wanted it to mean.  Perhaps this is why Stan has named his website about the work 'Where Nothing is Real'.

The link to Stan's website is here.

I extend my congratulations to Stan on an excellent exhibition which I thoroughly enjoyed.