www.countereditions.com/recto-verso
John Stezaker intervenes with found images—typically old film stills, vintage postcards, or Hollywood headshots—by excising critical parts of the composition or by juxtaposing two seemingly unrelated images. His concise alterations have surprising surreal effect and psychological force.
John Stezaker has created the limited edition print, Recto/Verso (2012), exclusively for Counter Editions. The image arose from Stezaker’s early Dark Star series of silhouettes cut out from mid-century actors’ portraits. The layered profiles confound a straightforward reading of presence and absence. The overlaying of male and female profiles, of colour and shadow, of empty flatness and carefully modelled detail, gives rise to sensations of nostalgia, romanticism, and perhaps of voyeurism. In a world saturated by images, Stezaker’s manipulations create space both physically and metaphorically for alternative interpretations, for exploring the seams and fissures of the visual world.
Founded in 2000, Counter Editions commissions and produces prints and multiples by leading contemporary artists including John Baldessari, Rebecca Warren, Peter Doig, Roni Horn, Tracey Emin, and Chris Ofili.
Counter Editions
44a Charlotte Road
London EC2A 3PD
T +44 020 7684 8888
mail [at] countereditions.com
*Image above:
Courtesy of Counter Editions and the artist.
