In “Nautilus Shell,” Nick Veasey presents the shell of a marine mollusc like an instantiation of aurora borealis itself — radiating at its centre, cosmic, celestial. This image, notably Veasey’s deployment of x-ray technology, stands as testament to photography’s ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, to wandering heights.

Given his chosen medium of x-rays, Veasey fascinates over looking beneath the surface perhaps more literally than most: “We all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, that beauty is more than skin deep. By revealing the inside, the quintessential element of my art speculates upon what the manufactured and natural world really consists of.”

Veasey chooses diasec as his method of producing x-ray images in which chromogenic prints are sandwiched between di-bond and polished perspex on the back and front respectively. Because of the light penetration and refraction of this clear acrylic compared to normal glass, the colours in diasec x-rays are more brilliant and the image sharper than with standard glass in a picture frame. A diasec mount, also known as a ‘plexi-face mount’, is usually of a high gloss finish and gives the final image a humorous, stylised feel that makes it ‘pop’. Given that working with x-rays is dangerous, Veasey understands that in his practice, creating beautiful images comes with a risk and that safety is paramount. All the radiation is contained in a bespoke concrete chamber where the majority of his x-ray works are created. What results is the artist’s fusion of science with art and inner mechanics with inner beauty, obsession over ideas of the raw and the superficial, removal of visual cues and biases through which we usually identify things, and revealing of the extent to which we rely on them.

Named after Veasey’s book published in 2017, the exhibition Inside Out was hosted at Fotografiska Stockholm in late 2017.

Size: 19.69”W x 27.56”H (50x70 cm)

Printed on FSC-certified paper