Exhibition: Devour, by Christopher Jonassen.
Venue: Ellingsen Von Krogh
Open: Saturdays 11-17 (15 aug – 30 sept)
The photographic project Devour is an exploration of used and worn out frying pans. The images examine surfaces of teflon and cast-iron frying pans. We see textures, wounds, patterns, traces of food, and discoloration that have accumulated over years of use.
“It fascinated me how everyday life was wearing out the metal of the pans, one tiny scratch at a time, and I wanted to create a link between the tiny marks we leave behind every day and the enormous impact this adds up to over time”.
Through a custom developed process the pans are transformed into what resembles strange planets and celestial objects. Thematically the project expresses a concern about the way we are treating our planet. This concern is reflected in the title. Devour means to eat up greedily; to destroy, consume and waste; to prey upon voraciously.
Christopher Jonassen (b. 1978, Stavanger) has a master’s degree in design from the University of Technology in Sydney and is a self-trained photographer. He works solely with his own artistic projects, and through them has gained wide press coverage and participated in numerous exhibitions, both national and international, including “Høstutstillingen” in 2019.
Thematically, the projects can be described as studies of research questions and human patterns of action. A driving force for all the projects is the desire to show simple, everyday phenomena in new and unexpected ways, where the question of what we actually witness and what it can tell us about our culture and ourselves comes to the fore.
The project Devour has been featured in TIME, National Geographic, The Independent, NASA (twitter), Süddeutschen Zeitung, Der Spiegel, among others. The associate photo editor for TIME Magazine, Myles Little, in an interview, said about the series that “Devour offers a rare, unexpected form of poetry for the eye”.
www.christopherjonassen.com
Link to the review in Stavanger aftenblad (by art critic Trond Borgen). https://www.aftenbladet.no/kultur/i/8m3qqW/planeter-i-verdensrommet-nei-steikepanner