Thomas Jocher: Unshaven Reality

Thomas Jocher Artist statement

The intention of my work is to reflect over the relationship between the viewing and the viewed, investigating the conventions of the painting’s perception as penetration and identification in a space of representation and illusion.

I am especially interested in showing this relationship as a mainly physical activity in which the tradition of taste is affected by the appetite (sex and food) and the criteria of elegance and prestige. I intend to put to the test the connections between taste and tastelessness, seduction and repulsion, the full and the empty, the concave and the convex.

My subjects are inspired as much by typical iconography of traditional representation from painting history as by everyday objects, such as fruits, flowers, sausages, etc. They are rendered as bodies, which invite the viewer to introduce their gaze into them.

I like the painting to work as a container for the attracted viewer for whom viewing becomes an entire physical experience.

Thomas Jocher
Unshaven Reality