Jay Jesse McVicker

Dark Structure

1957

ATO>MIC #3, 2020 Unique Gelatin Silver Print/ Luminogram and Photogram technique, Printed on tea infused fibre based paper, Custom Framed: museum mount-board with antireflective UV protective art glass in dark brown lacquered hardwood frame, /hand made in UK/ 23 x 18 cm (image print) 40.5 x 36 cm (Framed) Unique Series: ATO>MIC Signed and dated in pencil on verso Provided with the Certificate of Authenticity “The ATO>MIC work started as an attempt to replicate the idea behind still life painting - where you are trying to reproduce the image of solid looking things, things that could be on a shelf. So, I wanted to try doing that with just using light instead of paints - however I soon started to see the similarities with Harold Edgerton’s famous atomic explosion photos and how the scale of my work could be switched between small items on a shelf to enormous atomic explosions. That is the reason behind the strange title ATO>MIC - where the “>” is a kind of link between larger and smaller scales, between the two influencing ideas.” – Mike G Jackson The images (from the ATO>MIC series) may be reminiscent of the first milliseconds of atomic bomb explosions captured by Harold Edgerton's Rapatronic camera in the early 1950s but also visualise the thought of Maholy-Nagy’s bold visions in the Bauhaus’s movement toward the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art.” The 3D concepts that were first expanded in the same art movement by El Lissitzky a hundred years ago, are also explored here by Jackson’s drowned thin line within the third of the image. In his vision, the line reflects a shelf with the object on top, by adding the weight to it, the gravity pushing them down. Or maybe the thin line is just the horizon, where the enormous atomic blast took place…? Beyond these flat forms of two dimensional ‘lumino-graphic’ works on paper, the purest form of photography (‘light drawing’) lays a visible path to three-dimensional imaginary world, realised in precise composition, rhythm and warm earthy tones of these works. It’s up to the viewer to decide what they prefer to see and take with them. As Wassily Kandinsky once said; “Imagination is what allows your mind to discover.” About the Artist: Michael G Jackson...

Central Park is part of a group of prints based on a visit to New York City, Because I live and work in quiet isolation and often don't meet anyone apa...

Murmuration, 2024 Hand printed C-Type Print, Float mounted in custom made frame, finished with antireflective art glass Print size: 20 x 25 cm, Framed: 35.5 x 37.5 cm (as seen on 1st...

“Colour gives me a new way of working - in complete darkness. It seems contradictory that to produce colour you need to work in the dark. You blindly feel your way around the paper w...