Operation Crossroads-Baker

W: 75" D: 1" H: 40"

Archival Inkjet Piezography Print

 2019

Entitled "Operation Crossroads-Baker" this print by Chicago-based artist Jan Pieter Fokkens offers a representation of an atomic test that took place at Bikini Atoll in 1946. The operation researched the effects of nuclear weapons on warships. Nicknamed “Helen of Bikini” the sea spray caused extensive contamination. Bikini remains uninhabited as of today.

Inspired by de-classified images of nuclear tests, contemporary computer compression algorithms and early non-representational art, Fokkens recreates images that exist at the verge of our imagination. Done completely by hand, each work is created with the use of custom algorithms that extract qualities such as pattern, form and color. Fokkens then draws these abstracted qualities with repetitive marks on photopaper.  In similar fashion as the “sanitized” and declassified documents, full of black outs and opaque cover up tape, that accompany these nuclear tests. The result is a reductionist, analogue interpretation of an unimaginable and obscured reality. 

Unframed. Edition of 10 + AP