Operation Teapot-Apple

W: 54" D: 1" H: 42"

Archival Inkjet Piezography Print

 2019

Entitled "Operation Teapot Apple" this print by Chicago-based artist Jan Pieter Fokkens offers a representation of an atomic test that took place at the Nevada Test Site in 1955. Nicknamed “Survival Town”, the destructive forces of nuclear weapons on civilian structures was researched during this operation. At the same time Rapatronic Photography was developed in Hollywood. These camera’s were capable of recording still images with  exposure times as brief as a microsecond.

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. For this series the “sanitized” declassified documents, full of black outs and opaque cover up tape, were the inspiration for the way in which each mark was drawn. The result is a reductionist, analogue interpretation of an unimaginable and obscured reality.

Unframed. Edition of 10 + AP