Performer, photographer, and painter Teun Hocks is “an innocent Everyman in an always strange and often funny world,” as Janet Koplos recently noted. In scenes burlesque to tragicomic, his lonely Buster Keaton-like persona struggles to find stable ground in an unstable universe. Life’s complications take the form of impossible Rube Goldbergian contraptions fraught with psychological implications. Each image captures one moment of an implied narrative, triggering questions about how the protagonist ever got himself into such a fix and what in the world will happen next. The wit, elaborate technique, and rich colors of his images combine to form an irrepressibly original oeuvre. In addition to his painted photographs, the book includes drawings, Polaroids, and studio shots, which illuminate his creative process. This is the first English-language volume devoted to the artist.“Hocks is the master of the short story compressed into a single image.”—Janet KoplosTeun Hocks was made possible with generous support from The Netherland-America Foundation and the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam.
