Alchemical Reaction by Andrea Scott In a hallucinatory catalog essay co-written in 1966 by Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, an extraterrestrial comments on a canvas by the engineer of his spaceship: «I'm glad you're conventional, with no qualms about painting beautiful pictures.
Besides the paint, she also uses: asphalt, plaster weld, and copper plating as catalysts with the pieces taking on a richer dimension from
the alchemical reaction that ensues.
I use the word «melt» advisedly — the film's images literally look as if they're burning in the crucible of some kind of
alchemical reaction.
Alchemical reactions involve people's desires.
[1] This is a tale of male thugs and of father tongues, of alternative imagination, of
alchemical reactions, and of human intimacies.