While visiting the Los Angeles Art Show I was introduced to the work of British photographer, Nick Veasey. He primarily works with X-ray images.
Interestingly, his fascination with X-ray images began during a photo shoot of a Coke can while he was working for an advertising and design company. His work is often not a pure X-ray and involves Photoshop work to complete the image. What makes Veasey’s work compelling is the way it taps into the human desire to know what lies beyond the visible. I liken this phenomenon to artist Alberto Giacometti’s obsession with understanding and expressing the true nature of an object, which includes our understanding of what lurks beneath the outer surface. In Veasey’s case his work employs a technology used by the medical profession and security industry to identify objects that may be harmful.
The image shown here is a portion of an X-ray entitled VW Camper Van that was produced in 2019.
The image is quite large, measuring 71” x 37”. When you examine the work you immediately identify the seemingly innocent nature of the subject matter — a couple camping with their child and dog. However, like an overzealous TSA agent, your attention swiftly transitions to all the details in the image which fill out a complex narrative fabricated in one’s mind. You can’t help but create an elaborate profile of these people when noticing, for example, the surfboards on the top of the van, the wine bottles stashed behind the passenger’s seat or the relative size/age of the child. The image gives you the eerie sense that the people in the work are unaware of your critical, probing gaze. Veasey’s work explores the power of transparency, our insatiable need to probe using invasive tools of surveillance.