Peter Aldrich
Casaba Melon
23.03.22 – 09.04.22
A parallel art canon is identified in Peter Weibel’s 1992 essay, ‘Pittura Immedia’, tracking the history of the mechanistically processed image, predominantly the photograph, next to that of the easel painting. Weibel discusses this influence on contemporary painting of the 90’s.
This group of paintings have been made with an understanding of the present immediacy of photography and the common, almost obligatory, use of ‘effect’. To apply a filter to a photo was once only available to professional designers, now it is an industry promoted to children. So is the ease in which we manipulate the image.
Through ‘effect’ we distort and refine our fetishistic desires to images and it is through this desire we dictate the surfaces we see. This is the focus of my project: painting and surface effect and the normalcy of the inauthentic.
The title, ‘Casaba Melon’ is in reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s, ‘Psycho’. He chose a casaba from every available melon, in order to stab the fruit with a knife for the infamous shower scene sound effect.
