Lucas Blalock

Lucas Blalock: Projecting the Intangible

Issue I Distortion

Writer: Joven Delay
Editor: Jiani Wang
Image Credit: Artist
Videographer: shuwan

Lucas Blalock, an influential and pioneering artist and photographer, merges ham-fisted digital trickery with traditional photography, solidifying his position as a visionary in contemporary image-making. His larger-than-life works draw on diverse moments from his life, spanning inside jokes with friends, traumatic injuries, and childhood memories inspired by knick knacks. Blalock reflects on these experiences with a touch of absurdity, humor, and profound self-awareness, creating a rich tapestry of artistic expression.

On a rainy Sunday, we step into Lucas Blalock's Brooklyn studio. The space is in transition, boxes stacked high, random objects strewn across tables, capturing the essence of a transformative moment from one artistic chapter to the next. Blalock, an artist and photographer who has called New York home for almost two decades, opens up about his journey, influences, and the ever-evolving landscape of photography.

Originally from the mountains of North Carolina, Blalock's artistic journey was an unexpected detour from his early interests in books and movies. “Art wasn’t on my radar,” he tells us, those early years were instead influenced by the likes of David Lynch, Quentin Tarrantino, and Tim Burton.

His path led him to Bard College, where, fueled by intellectual curiosity, he found his way to art and pursued a BA in photography. Reflecting on his college experience, he speaks highly of Bard's photography program, emphasizing the hours spent in the darkroom that fostered a strong sense of closeness and understanding among students, “it built a really wonderful community.” The connections made within this tight-knit group, which eventually expanded into a broader artistic community in New York, laid the foundation for Blalock’s evolving perspective.

During Lucas Blalock's time at Bard, the arrival of the inkjet printer marked the beginning of a transformative phase. A collective fascination with the printer's potential for larger prints led Blalock and his peers into a new kind of work flow. Blalock, shooting 8 by 10 color film, scanned his film, and made digital outputs producing expansive 40 by 50 inkjet prints. It was a work-a-day solution, but one that would quietly lay the groundwork for what was to come next.

Following graduation, Blalock persisted in his work, utilizing the computer as a surrogate darkroom due to the unavailability of traditional methods. Armed with a desktop, a scanner and a compact printer, these tools became his substitutes for the conventional darkroom. It was a time of experimentation, “as I was messing around with the computer, I would make things that fell outside the easy bounds of what I thought was photography,” but Blalock didn’t yet know what to make of this work and largely set it to the side.

A turning point emerged with the discovery of Bertolt Brecht's writings on theater—a revelation that provided a conceptual framework. This became a guiding model, offering Blalock a means to incorporate these quasi-photographic creations into his understanding and subsequently into his body of work. Photography had, at this point, long served as the defining container for Blalock’s aesthetic. He utilized a photographic workflow, which involved shooting film, scanning, computer-based retouching, and culminated in a digital C-print. However, with Brecht in mind, a deviation unfolded in his methods. Within the uniformity of the process and its expected outcomes, Blalock found an opportunity “to make all of those middle steps an evident part of a picture,” turning them from invisible technicalities into integral components of the pictorial experience. The decision to unveil the magic trick rather than cloak it became a deliberate choice. Instead of rendering those steps seamless, he wove them visibly into the very fabric of the picture, inviting viewers to witness and appreciate the intricate layers, “instead of doing all those steps invisibly I did them where they could be seen,” where the audience could engage with the work beyond mere observation.

Blalock's journey from film capture to inkjet print transcended mere technical transformation; it became a purposeful act of exposing the artistic process, or the means of production—a celebration in itself. This departure from convention created a dynamic interplay between the anticipated and the unexpected, as elements that once lingered on the fringes of photography coalesced in a visually compelling dialogue.

Objects as Comedic Tools: Lucas Blalock's Unique Approach to Connection and Expression

Looking to Blalock's studio, the space is filled with an extensive collection of objects, each carrying its own associations and metaphoric potential. When speaking to the nostalgic quality of the artifacts gracing his space, Lucas Blalock's exploration of warmth and desire to connect in a digital era takes center stage, “I feel like the digital is so cold that having things that we already have associations with feels good.” His extensive collection of objects is a product of years spent combing through a specific layer of material culture. These collected objects, he reveals, often bear oblique metaphoric relationships to the ideas and feelings unfolding in his images. Rather than adhering to a symbol-driven process, Blalock emphasizes the role of intuition and desire in shaping his artistic endeavors. “The picture-making process,” according to him, “is about trying to develop a relationship to things.”

When asked about the origins of these items, Blalock reveals his favorite hunting grounds—discount stores scattered across the city. “But they can come from all over the place. Things find their way in different ways. I've always kind of got an eye out.” Childhood memories of reluctant visits to antique stores, fueled by his mother's enthusiasm, resurface. “My mom really loved dusty old antique barns, and she used to take us kind of against our will. We'd always stop, and everyone would roll their eyes and we'd get out and sort of wander through these spaces. I think that that experience, trying to make myself have fun in there and looking for things to tell a joke about, I don't know, that feels like it's underneath all of this somehow.”

This process of collecting and creating is often devoid of any specific plan, “sometimes I have an idea when I'm shopping and oftentimes that idea doesn't really end up in the picture.” During the picture making process, he goes on to explain, “my brain is rarely involved, it functions in a third-party kind of way.” There is an inherent trust to his creative process that relies on the inherent relational and intuitive aspects of his subconscious thinking to dictate the final composition. Quite simply, he lets himself feel, relying on his ability not to think too much, and instead piece together items until something larger unveils itself.

Oftentimes, this larger idea revolves around humor which plays a significant role in Blalock’s work. This strange interplay of digital manipulation, word play, and object collecting, is a form of "object stand-up” for Blalock, a way of trying out material and establishing a connection with viewers. He reveals that the work is made for others, crafted for an intimate audience that includes fellow artists and friends, “I'm interested in me connecting, and also in you connecting, and in you connecting to me.” Humor is just as powerful as love, and Blalock shows us what he loves and what he finds funny, his only hope is that we might share that moment with him. “It's about having an intimate relationship that I'm then sharing. The audience becomes in on it, on this inside joke, even if it’s not about them.”

Ketchup as a Vegetable: Associations and Subconscious Threads

In the realm of art, Lucas Blalock's solo exhibition, "Ketchup as a Vegetable," marked the emergence of his distinctive fusion of digital and film photography, showcasing an intimate exploration of absurdist humor intertwined with the tangible and sensory potential of the medium. The title of the show, a nod to a Reagan administration legislation dubbing condiments as vegetables in school lunches, acts as a satiric backdrop for Blalock’s own blend of truth and falsehood— prompting reflections on previously unseen associations.

Much like the layers in his creative process, where associations and subconscious messages manifest into tangible forms, the resulting pieces harbor hidden secrets and point to invisible realities. Each artwork conceals a dye-sublimation print on the back of its frame—an unseen message or footnote when the work is hung, subtly influencing the piece. Blalock winkingly breaks this barrier in his exhibition, inviting viewers into his game by placing a few of the framed pieces in the center of the room, revealing their rears and establishing an expectation that charges the rest of the work.

The abstract and surrealist elements in Blalock's pieces extend beyond the objects, into the language that surrounds the work, crucially with, titles. The titles serve as clues—gateways to thoughts, feelings, or moments in the creation of each piece. They embody a predetermined essence, a "combinatorial logic" guiding the viewer's understanding.

Blalock's photographs, existing as tangible yet abstract and immaterial entities, take on a life of their own.For the artist, they dictate their own names, leading Blalock through a labyrinth of associations and messages, deciding when the creative process is complete. The process becomes “a game of replacement – where something is like something else that maybe wasn't evident until it then is,” similarities emerge unexpectedly, and then things settle down. It is a process mirrored by the audience. In this darkly comic and uncanny universe of abandoned objects and secret messages, viewers embark on a journey, chasing threads, exploring ideas, and participating in the call-and-response system carefully crafted by Blalock.

Insoluble Pancakes: Navigating Estrangement through Inflated Realities

In 2018, Lucas Blalock underwent a transformative experience when he broke a vertebra, confining him to a chair and steering his creative process towards a computer-centric approach. This pivotal moment is recounted in his 2023 book, "Why must the mounted messenger be mounted?," where he discusses his genetic bone disorder and its impact on his susceptibility to fractures. Reflecting on this period, he shares, "there was a turn in my work towards making these kinds of inflated 3D bodies," emphasizing their "weightless, boneless, strange" nature. These creations emerged as a direct response to the alienation he felt from his own body during the healing process.

During his time of limited mobility, Blalock produced a series of self-portraits which were showcased in his show Insoluble Pancakes. All the pieces originate from the same set of 4x5 negatives, seated on a bistro chair in his studio, he twisted and turned his body, employing digital manipulation to extrude 3D elements and reshape his physical form. This process, —distorting, dissecting, and inflating body parts—resulted in images that became unrecognizable and alien. The dynamic bodies within the photographs blurred the boundaries between image and object, challenging conventional perspectives with a field of partial views.

These self-portraits, born out of physical injury, symbolize a complicated acceptance of the self and an externalization of internal estrangement. Blalock candidly explains that the digital distortion process became a way of "trying to put these pieces back together, trying to reconcile my body in the world, digital in the material, the warm and the cold." These images embody a profound contradiction, simultaneously depicting alienation and ownership, capturing the internal struggle within Blalock.

However, this transformative phase faced an unexpected halt when Photoshop discontinued its 3D tool. For Blalock, this was a symbolic sign, marking the culmination of a metaphor he had pursued to its limits. He now embarks on a new artistic journey, driven by a revitalized desire to explore fresh avenues and sink his teeth into untapped possibilities.

Embracing the Unknown: Blalock's Endless Exploration

Looking ahead, Blalock contemplates a desire for a blank slate, a new beginning. He shares a poignant story from "The Maltese Falcon" about a man who, almost killed on his way to lunch, decides to leave everything behind and start anew. “It's a weird story,” he admits, “but I think it's totally possible that my progress could keep going in the same direction that I could start over and make the same decisions all over again. But I'm interested in there being some open-endedness in this moment.”

Blalock's growth as an artist is evident in his ability to navigate shifts, adapt to new technologies, and challenge the boundaries of photography. His journey, marked by experimentation and a deep engagement with the artistic community, positions him as a relevant voice in the evolving conversation around image-making and authorship.

As we leave his studio, boxes still in flux, the air is filled with anticipation of what's to come. Blalock's journey, like his work, remains open-ended—an exploration of the ever-shifting landscape of art and the endless possibilities that lie ahead.