Tim Roda: The Butcher’s Block

Tim Roda’s black and white family portraits mirror his childhood memories and family traditions as a place of individual and social myth building. He photographs himself, his wife and his four sons in carefully prepared, symbolically loaded settings, which he constructs in his studio. Specific to each image the settings are made from simple materials such as wood, clay, plaster, paper and everyday objects. The photographs are like fragments of a narrative in which the familiar mingles with the foreign, the known with the sinister.

The Butcher’s Block is the first extensive overview of Roda’s work. Included in the book are texts by three authors who approach the pictures in different ways. Kimberly Roda Moorhead, sister of the artist, writes a brief introductory text which addresses their childhood experiences in a very personal way. Ursula Panhans-Bühler provides a detailed analysis of the artist’s pictorial language and uncovers the psychological complexity of his compositions. The author and dramatist Dagrun Hintze was inspired by the photographs to produce an “art thriller”, which introduces the reader to Roda’s surreal world in an almost playful manner.