In his latest edition, John Bock shows a fragmented figure, drawn in fine red lines against a pale background — a hybrid being at its center, part human, part creature, with disjointed yet fluid anatomy. Around it, handwritten words like QUASI-ICH, EVIL, and MODDER appear — hastily outlined, suggesting meaning, offering only contradiction and confusion.
In the foreground and across the body, a cluster of objects or materials appears — functional yet nonsensical — unclear if in use or merged with the being. The etching could be a (self-)portrait though not in a traditional sense. The figure resists definition, and language here offers no guidance. It seems caught in motion or paused mid-rest; its state undefined.
There’s no clear line between body and object. Are the materials extensions, or is it dissolving into them? In this bubble, only the subject and its things exist — the scattered words acting like word hallucinations.
Like a Dadaist stage, and in line with Bock’s other works, the work resists logic. Yet something feels familiar. Moving through the daily, we carry objects and materials so tied to us they feel part of us. In constant interaction, the line between self and object dissolves — our world completed by the words we repeat in our heads. Here, as in life, with Dada as compass, contradiction becomes structure, and nonsense makes its own kind of sense.