A self-taught photographer, Jack Davison makes pictures like a painter paints, using intuition and instinct to craft photographs that excavate the surreal and sensual from the fabric of daily life. Relying heavily on chiaroscuro and the power of photography to obscure as well as reveal, Davison’s unique, crafted approach to image-making oscillates from crisp, sharp details into dissolving mirages – the world inverted and submerged.
With their deep shadows and tight framing, the images in Photographs have an unmistakably cinematic quality; each layered image leaves a breadcrumb trail of associations that extend far beyond its initial context. Despite Jack’s recent successes, he remains humble and all-encompassing in his photography, and the book indistinguishably shifts from staged, meticulous editorial setups to simple everyday occurrences, infused with mystery and depth.
Two recurring motifs in Davison’s work are the hand and the eye: here a clenched fist, there caressing a face; here glaring out from a billboard and elsewhere shimmering in a reflection. They represent a dynamic tension within Davison’s work, of seeing versus feeling, or the threshold between perception and imagination. The delicate sequence in Photographshovers between these two states, creating a complex, soulful interpretation of the world through Jack's enigmatic portraits, landscapes and still lifes.
136 pages, 24 x 25 cm, hardcover, Loose Joints (London).