Christopher Bucklow: Guests

The exhibition presents a series of unique photographs created using a special technique based on the principle of the camera obscura. In 1993, Christopher Bucklow moved to Venice, where he lived and worked for two years. Like many artists throughout history, he was drawn to the city’s aquatic environment and atmosphere, with its distinctive golden light reflected in the waters of the lagoon. It was here that he produced many of the early photographs from the “Guests” series, using a technique he had developed while working as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Each work represents a person Bucklow has encountered in dreams; dreams act as a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. The artist believes these figures suggest a transfer of energy and reflect aspects of his own psychology, becoming a form of extended self-portraiture. He calls them Guests because their appearance in the image is transient and fleeting, much like natural light, which is constantly shifting and never appears in exactly the same way twice.

The exhibition forms part of the Metropole’s ongoing programme of contemporary art, organised in collaboration with the Gervasuti Foundation, London–Venice, and curated by James Putnam.