Entrance to the underworld

Through his artistic practice, Luke Parker attempts to reconcile and navigate the overwhelming proliferation of images that was precipitated by the development of photo-mechanical reproduction 100 years ago and has exponentially increased in the digital age. Working with collage, Parker combines his own photographs with found objects and images he has collected over the last 20 years. Accumulating and repurposing his personal image archive, Parker tactically negotiates the deluge of mundane images we encounter in everyday life and cultivates networked connections between unrelated forms. Teasing out associative links between distinct images and objects, Parker seeks to momentarily suspend the visual overload by inscribing each orphaned image with its own poetic logic.

In 'Entrance to the underworld' Parker explores the metaphoric resonance of the sinkhole. Sudden and catastrophic abrasions in the earth’s surface, sinkholes are dangerously unpredictable. As an allegorical reference point, the sinkhole signifies chaos and disorder yet within the context of Parker’s collage it is implicated in an astute study of connectivity. Some images have been sewn into the collage with silver thread while a piece of mesh and a friendship bracelet – two objects that bind, connect and envelop – are also embedded in the work. These physical incursions within the image plane affirm the photograph’s status as a material fact. Figuratively and literally tethered to one another, these photographs of holes, openings and apertures become conduits and bridges.