JOEY KNOX - "MARISSA" PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK

MOM: Joey’s debut publication; Marissa, reflects an America lost in translation but newly discovered through his unique view of this foreign land.

Your idols are magical and important. Where in this case meeting the culture, landscape, people and places you have idolised may just as easily change or discount your view of them.

“The American landscape was something I only ever saw in films. As a film maker travelling there was something I needed to do. I wanted to explore the backdrops of what had inspired me most. When there I was confronted by the baron and run down landscape, the natural order of the U.S. was not what I had imagined. Yet, I was drawn to the beauty and the characters that occupied it. Zig zagging up and down throughout each state in my $500 van (Marissa), I captured a world I had only seen visually before with a new understanding of how it could look.”

To Idolise is to have prejudice that can hinder a clear thought. Engrained within society and media, America acts as a big brother to our Australian culture. The films we grew up watching control the very essence of magic that we believe the American dream has. A dream, for most Australian youth. Sought after by moving overseas to make it. Joey’s body of work demystifies the ideas based around the American dream. His individual discovery of a culture and landscape act as a catalyst to Joey’s changing idea of the states through this narrative.

Marissa plays as a vehicle of transposition, while slowly debunking the truth about how a culture that has so heavily influenced the outside world could look to a foreign eye. Existing in the beautiful space between contrast and commonality, the book acts as a beautiful yet grim environment for Joey’s visual exploration.

MOM009 

88 Pages
271 x 200mm
Colour Indigo Printing
Perfect Bound
Arcoprint uncoated cover
ISBN: 979-8-89034-984-2
Printing : E-Plot
First Edition of 200
Design: Oscar O’Shea
Titles: Jack Summers