From the publisher or author or both

Charred Cell is formed from a period of visual research into the clinical estrangement of domestic environments- the work eludes to a cynicism that coexists alongside enlightenment, stuck between an escapist alternative of the present, and the tension that fluctuates between trauma and awakening.

Suggestions of manipulation, both physical and emotional, arise alongside recurring photographic motifs of optimism- a warm radiation of presence, yet not without hostility. Visually deconstructed, they are banal yet recognisable elements of authority, control, and a permeating coldness that trickles slowly to the surface, allowing mediation of actual horror and a safety blanket against an anxiety that appears constant.

How is emotion initially processed through images? Is a constant sense of trauma
always present when searching for? What is visible to some that may be otherwise
concealed to others- how does this visceral response to fear both
protect and endanger? The materials and functions within Hutchinson’s images purposely obscure their intentions, allowing reflection in the state that exists between the aestheticisation of a fiction, and a true understanding of the reality an image can depict.

 

My Take

I’ll be honest. I feel the text is a slight disservice to the work. This is a fantastic book. I made the mistake of reading the press release after I fell in love with it, but no tears, please; I still feel a remorseless empathy toward the work.

What doesn’t make sense to me is the need to explain that which doesn’t require explanation, but I really can’t blame whoever wrote this. I did alot of this sort of thing over the past years. Looking for ways to edge my process and my work into a vacuum of negativity, implying that the creator of works carries some vague threat, probably culled from a vast and bubbling morass of guilt that I really don’t have that much to say in the end, just a series of observations strung together like spittle between a bulldog’s jaws. That doesn’t mean a lack of sincerity or talent, but rather that I feel compelled, like all of the art sheep, to create meaning for others, when in reality the only meaning we can promote is that which allows the audience to make their own way through the work. However, a great press release with no words does not make.

Perhaps I’ve given up. I’ve also learned that the less we say about the reasons for our work, the further we get with it. The market has asked us to be clever in a cruel joke. Universities have suggested we work in series, discussing shit in proximity to our mark-making that someone else wrote, who doesn’t make marks, and that we then try to tie it like a greased millstone around our neck in a forced walk to cross a very narrow series of pontoon boats idling over the radioactive slop of what passes for culture these days. I think the royal we should shut the fuck up more, but here I go edging the f-bomb from my awkward typing fingers, repeating the gesture. Have you ever noticed that all this talk is just a performance? The work itself is the meaning, not how we, artists, with barely opposable thumbs, dictate its meaning to others.

All that aside, I think this is a fantastic book for several reasons, and those reasons are just my own, no matter the artist’s intention, who seems quite pleasant and talented. The thing we always forget is that we destroyed intention a long time ago, so no matter what we tell ourselves, to say to others, it’s all going to get twisted, the more twisted the better. We must remain misunderstood, I guess. After all the outrage porn and senseless battery of our disclaimers, we are still nostalgic for the idea of 20th-century meaning in a 21st-century world. In terms of the market, how fun is it that people who can afford to buy work seem to want to feel stupid or be in on some inside joke to relate to other fools when they explain it on their wall at their dinner parties? I can tell they don’t know shit about fuck, but in the end, it doesn’t matter.

Back to Charred Cell, Thanks for listening. What I really dig about this book is that, press release aside, I get the command to look at unexplored architecture, passed-over piss-stained corners, free-hug hovels, and mold-encrusted single bulb passages to pass the time like that guy thumbing one out in the basement corner of the final scene of The Blair Witch Project. I mean, I really think that might be about an existential wank after so many days in the cold, wet woods, dreaming up new configurations of pop sickle sticks while praying for GPS. Some of the rooms, basements, corners, or storage lockers in Hutchinson’s book give me that vibe, kind of like a Roger Ballen picture without the people. Needs a few crosses and some pigeon shit, but I reckon you…get the picture.

Interspersed within the economy of these dank corners are images of their clean, less existential version, which are either newly built sheds in an English garden or a Finnish sauna. I’ll err toward something in between. I do like the contrast between smelling fresh pine versus old Pinesol. This book has a decayed creep to it, offset by the occasional figure for balance. Man on fire, some lady trapped under ice or something like it, a mermaid trapped in a k-hole. These images serve as footnotes to the sculptures and building materials found within Sam’s frames. Those 2×4 sculptures remind me a bit of Thomas Albdorf or maybe Stephan Keppel, but slightly more lively, as if drawing from Kenta Cobayashi without the over-layering. Then there are the words, the faded and acidic references to drugs and health and more barbed wire than Pamela Anderson’s tramp stamp. Please don’t get angry, I didn’t make that up. It exists in a colloquial exchange as much as knob, dickhead, or gigachad. Suck it, the fuck up.

Anyways, it’s books like this that we look back on later in an artist’s career, when we see them begin to hit their stride. It feels pretty mature, and there is something singular about the work. The sequencing is well thought through, and the artist and publisher are unafraid of repetition, something I personally love in books but that, in 2025, is a consideration as shit is getting more and more expensive. This is an artist book of 75 copies. I bought a second one, so there are 73 in total. Where’s yours? Sam, this is super strong. I get all that feeling in the text without even reading it. I hope I wasn’t too harsh there. I really think this is great.

I look forward to the next book. Sam, check out Rob Pruitt’s book Holy Crap, I reckon, as I looked through other work on your site, that you could get a whole book of those signs down the road. Anyway, I am listening to Cradle of Filth’s Midian from 2000. I go back to it often. I also watched a Vice video on Richard Prince. You should check it out. Photography is mostly god awfully boring these days. There isn’t much to learn from it in reviews, etc. One thing you have to admire about someone like Price is how much is unsaid within his stream of consciousness and how he delivers his message, carefully, but without gaps or comedy or seriousness. He’s a white pudding, and in that, I can paint whatever colors over him I want…worth remembering….

 

Highly Recommend and Freeeeeesh as Fuck.

 

X

 

 

 

Sam Hutchinson

Charred Cell

Boot Mag