On the afternoon pre-exhibition opening at Dallas Contemporary Patron caught up with John Houck an entirely approachable and intellectual Los Angeles-based artist. Curated by Dallas Contemporary?s Pedro Alonzo, all three bodies of work in the show are new while representing nine years of earlier series and ideas. Comprised of photography-based work, The Anthologist, borrowed from the novel by Nicholson Baker in which the author struggles to write the introduction to a collection of poetry, is Houck?s first solo museum exhibition.
Rife with dimensionality, the show displays Houck?s deliberate and defined process of photographing then re-photographing to create distinct bodies of work. The artist?s flexibility is further advanced by the display of three standalone paintings used as studies to create multidimensional photographs stitched with painting?a medium the artist became fascinated with during a 2008 residency in Skowhegan, Maine.
Beginning with a uniform colored piece of paper, real and perceived folds distinguish a series of archival on pigment paper pieces. ?Earliest in my practice I started grappling with the materiality of photography, particularly digital photography in 2009 during a Whitney Independent Study Program.? The artist tells Patron he was captivated during his art-making process with how, ?The fold would start to imbue the surface with light and play with the gradient of light across the surface.?
While these folds appear deceptively simple, Raking Light on the opposite wall in the gallery requires further study in its complexity. In this work, the artist?s ?harnessed light? tricks the viewer requiring further examination of its collaged effect. Here, the artist utilized the strong light of a low-hanging, New York sun creating long diagonal shadows. ?You have this light coming in sideways and revealing the texture of the object,? describes Houck.
While many of the photographic works are stitched with painting, Alonzo has installed three paintings spatially separate from the photograph on the reverse view for the Dallas Contemporary. The artist says he often begins with a drawing or painting to ?sort out the space? before he makes the photograph. Layering and repetition within the opposing photograph display the painting source material. Disorienting, Houck says, ?Figures and objects are sometimes falling out of the picture.? And represent, ?two or three different slices of time from different perspectives with light coming from different directions.?
And nostalgia plays a primary role in The Anthologist. Objects from childhood; a spiky log found in Joshua Tree; glimpses of materials within the artist?s studio?all demand examination in their reconciliation and subtle pull.