Beholding the Ordinary

I know I’m not supposed to, but I’ve always had a thing for photorealism. Like a pop song you’d never admit you love, it’s easy to disparage but hard to resist.

A style of art dismissed by some as outmoded and others as a market novelty, photorealism mimics the precision of photography. It works its magic in surprisingly mundane ways, originally relying on mechanical aids like grid transfers or projectors – and now employing common digital tools – to render everyday subjects with uncanny accuracy and detail. At first glance, photorealist paintings can look indistinguishable from their photographic source material, which is partly their aim.

Born, as I was, in the late 1960s, photorealism has always felt familiar to me in ways I can’t fully untangle, its prosaic subjects reflecting the early visual world that formed me. During this period, American and European cultures were awash in new media, mass imagery, and a shifting sense of realism. It was the age of television, Kodachrome, and a growing hunger for images that reflected lived experience.

In this essay, written for Plough, an exhibition on Photorealism provided me a springboard to explore how the labor-intensive process of making work that also slows the viewer down mirrors the practice of spiritual discipline. Could the labor of looking closely be in itself a sacred act? What if devotion is not just found in churches or Scripture, but in the act of rendering a diner napkin dispenser or a sun-drenched sidewalk with near-reverent care?

Pieter Claesz

Still Life With Crab, Fruit, Salt Cellar, Berkemeyers, and a China Bowl of Olives

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