“Strange”
You and Me on a Sunny Day #109/135
Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) Permanent Collection
C-print, 80 x 40 inches [203.2 x 101.6 cm]
Limited edition print 1/3
You and Me on a Sunny Day (starring Gilda Todar)
135 large-format film stills
Original Score by Benjamin Hill & Tristan de Liége
C-prints, 80 x 40 inches ea. [203.2 x 101.6 cm]
Limited edition prints of 3
‘Blazer’ Winner CENTER Santa Fe — Social Award
“Rocky’s pictures not only prompt us to think on current events but also draw attention to the struggles our nation faces.
The CENTER Awards recognize outstanding images, singular or part of a series, in three categories: Personal, Social, and Environmental.
Congratulations to Rocky for being selected for CENTER’s Social Award recognizing his project, Blazer. The Social Awards recognize work engaged in social issues. All projects exploring social topics or themes were eligible.”
Untitled Film Frame (starring Justin King)
Blazer Original Soundtrack by Benjamin Hill & Tristan de Liége
C-print, 60 x 33.75 inches [152.4 x 85.725 cm]
Limited edition print of 1
“Blazer is a timely project that resonates with many issues of our times. As a photographic body of work, it is quite different from other photobooks projects because it blends chronophotography with a script, dialogues, and staging much like a moving picture. That’s also what makes Rocky McCorkle’s work so unique, combining cinema-like images, an inventive and detailed aesthetic research, with the drama that characterizes theater.”
—Pierre-François Galpin, 2024
Porto, Portugal, 2024
On the horizon, I have begun adapting César Aira's short novel into a cine-novel. Aira’s very excited about this after he and his literary agent granted me permission earlier this year.
I’ll be adapting Aira's whimsical prose with a Portuguese Renaissance aesthetic like Vasco Fernandes (Grão Vasco). Rocky's Varamo will be shot on location in Porto, Portugal.
The Old Bay Bridge, Untitled #4 (May 17, 2014)
C-print, 40 x 30 inches (framed) [101.6 x 76.2 cm]
Limited edition print of 8
“Rocky McCorkle’s historic documentation of the dismantling of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco is a loving portrait of a long-lost landmark.”
—Art Ventures Gallery
You and Me on a Sunny Day #109/135
135 large-format film stills
C-print, 80 x 40 inches [203.2 x 101.6 cm]
Limited edition print of 3
“Every Sunday evening for five years, McCorkle brought Gilda Todar up for a photo shoot on a set that he had spent all week decorating as if it were the 1950s. It took half an hour to make one image, and the next week they did it all over again — a process slower than clay animation.”
—Sam Whiting, The San Francisco Chronicle
This photo was taken by my actor, Justin King, on the final day of shooting the cine-novel Blazer. While I was filming him, he captured this moment of me.
The title Blazer holds multiple layers of meaning. Beyond its literal reference, it evokes themes of trailblazing and imagery brimming with energy, motion, and emotion. Symbolically, the story also centers on the protagonist’s Chevy Blazer truck, which becomes a vehicle—both literal and figurative—for the unfolding narrative.
Lenscratch Article: Rocky McCorkle, "Blazer"
2023 Social Award Winner, Rocky McCorkle, "Blazer" // CENTER Santa Fe
"Strange", Berkeley Art Museum (BAMPFA), 2019-2020
"Strange", Berkeley Art Museum (BAMPFA), 2019-2020
"The Old Bay Bridge", Art Ventures Gallery, 2021
Solo Exhibition, Grand Theatre Center for the Arts, 2019
Solo Exhibition, Grand Theatre Center for the Arts, 2019
Photo World China Magazine, Cover and Feature Story, "Rocky McCorkle, In Search of Memory"
CENTER Awards - Excellence in Multimedia, 1st Place Winner, 2019
“Rocky’s project is so giving in ways that reward the audience. For many viewers there’s a visceral response to the scale, brilliance, warmth, and composition of the images. It’s a sensory exchange and one that’s often rooted in thoughtful recollections of family, home, love, and loss. Many leave and only to return to the gallery days later to do so, and often with others in tow.”
