Wednesday, January 28, 1998
Display reveals personal thoughts, experiences
ART Viewers marvel at photographer’s knack for emotional
storytelling
By Vanessa VanderZanden
Daily Bruin Staff
The shadowy hint of trees lines the off-white and brown
background like a horizon dipped in dusk. Stark white poppies blur
brightly in the foreground, clean and pure, echoing the enchanted
cry of a more pristine moment. Like "The Wizard of Oz," the moody
scene in the photograph "Biltmore Gardens" suggests an
otherworldliness close at hand.
"This work is something I do to get away from my job," explains
photographer Rocky Schenck. "It’s what I do to escape. It’s not to
please a client or art director or a celebrity. It’s just to please
myself. It’s my ultimate solution for my life."
Rocky Schenck’s art serves as a form of self-therapy in addition
to evoking a variety of emotions among viewers. On display in the
Paul Kopeikin Gallery until March 3rd, the craftily toned and
bleached images produce an obscured reality. Softer and more
soothing than most documentary style photographs, Schenck’s
technique attracts a unique fan-base.
"I get these fans, like, emotional romantic groupies, who seem
to really relate to it. I guess they’re emotional wrecks too,"
Schenk says, recalling an incident with a fan. "I get fan mail
which is really weird. One person knitted me some socks and said
‘Thank you for creating your work. You don’t know how much this
touches me.’ Weird stuff."
Even in the short time that Schenck’s work has been hanging on
Kopeikin’s walls, the reaction has been noticeably effective. While
some love its "timeless quality," others appreciate its nostalgic
feeling, which cause the scenes to appear more "like a dream or a
memory," according to gallery owner Paul Kopeikin. His initial
decision to show Schenck’s photos stems from his own appreciation
of the images.
"It’s just very different from what’s out there and I’ve always
liked pictorialism anyway," Kopeikin admits. "This is like
neo-pictorialism, hearkening back to that. I’ve never had a show
where so many people responded positively to the work."
With such sweet and somber images, it seems no wonder that
Schenck should attract quite a loyal following. For instance, his
shot "Dresden" reveals a dark, shadowy couple meandering away from
a staircase. The lack of sharp angles and distinguishable facial
features appear as a blissful memory, the harsher details
forgotten.
"If the story isn’t completely told within the image that I
shoot, then I manipulate the print further until it does tell the
story that I want to tell," Schenck relates. "It’s not like I go
with a pre-conceived idea of what I’m going to shoot. I just
travel, wander, and when I see something that excites me or moves
me or tells a story, I shoot."
Most of the scenes derive from one of Schenck’s yearly trips to
the South or occasional trip to Europe. After eight years of
shooting, developing and printing his pieces alongside his
commercial work, he knows just how to capture the perfect look. Or
create it.
"It’s a matter of making the picture I see in my head as close
to what I see as possible," Schenck explains. "If I’m not
photographing this scene at the perfect time and the lighting’s not
perfect, then I can make the lighting perfect in the printing and
the post-production of the print. It gives the pictures a very
painterly quality."
Though he finds the worlds he creates "too depressing" and
"gloomy" to live in, they consume his artistic mode of expression.
For example, "The Orchard" presents a swamp scene where the most
natural item appears to be the murky water itself. In a sense,
those things often taken for granted–the trees, the reeds, the
soil – take on an indistinguishable form while that which we wonder
about – the swampy, clouded water–seems to have maintained perfect
clarity all along.
"I’m a hopeless romantic,"admits Schenck of his visions. "A lot
of these pictures are taken when I’m trying to forget certain
things. You’ve opened up a Pandora’s box. Let’s leave it
mysterious."
Schenck’s reluctance to be precise parallels much of his work.
This shifty tendency seems especially prevalent in "Fourteen
Christmases," where a group of pine trees hover in a dark forest.
Each plant casts a grainy, round shadow, as though secluding a
wicked past within the comforting silence of an overgrown
thicket.
"Ever since this show was announced, I’ve been getting fan mail
from people I haven’t heard from in a long time," Schenck says.
"Other people look at (my art) and say it’s too romantic. It’s too
much. This guy has ‘very syrupy proclivities.’ So what I do is
whenever a reviewer writes something bad about it, I take that
phrase and make a picture with that title. I turn it into a
positive thing."
Inevitably, Schenck manages to turn everything his camera
catches into a positive thing. For example, his "London Hotel Room"
implies that a cheap motel’s bed chamber can be the softest sort of
serene beauty one can hope to achieve. On the television,
celebrities are reduced to shapeless forms and the scene remains
abstract.
Schenck seems to suggest that we never really live a communal
life but rather clamber into our heads and perceive the world only
as that which we desire it to be.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Rocky Schenck’s photographs will be on display
through March 3 at the Paul Kopeiken Gallery, 138 North La Brea
Ave. Admission is free. For more inforation, call (213)
937-0765.