Inspired by his earlier forays into electro-acoustic musical composition, Bastien Pon's work navigates between un-musical music and un-photographic photos.

His approach to both of these creative disciplines could be described as a process of distilling what he hears and sees down to the basic elements and rearranging the pieces in a way that challenges the listener's/viewer's perception of what seems, at first, to be familiar territory.

The resulting composition, be it acousmatic or pictorial, plunges us into a denatured world where the raw ingredients are juxtaposed, reconfigured and remixed to create a subliminal feeling of disquiet. In this selection of his works, we find scenes which appear for the most part recognizable, comprehensible, in sum, a work of photography.

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The eye is drawn to a salient feature, then pans wide to take in the whole. It is then that we begin to perceive that the subject is not the subject, the background – opaque and flattened – has moved to the fore, and the pieces of the picture do not seem to fit. Finally, we notice the veneer, the overlays of textures and shapes that somehow bind it all together.

But rather than enveloping or enshrouding the scene, the veneer seems to eat away at the subject, which is left scarred, cracked and flaking. Where the photo begins and ends, and what forces lurk below that tortured surface can only be surmised.

Becky Reynaud