Robo Kočan has the ability to “see the anticipated”. The anticipated and wanted, buried deeply in the subconsciousness, which transmits us through the “lines of light” of his photographs by means of an inconsiderate – ironic, but also poetic, to a childish playful view of the world. He belongs to the prominent representatives of the second new wave of Slovak photographers, who in the 1990s intervened strongly not only in the Slovak but also in the Central European art space, especially through multimedia approach to photography and new techniques in staged photography. With Robo Kočan, both lines appear simultaneously.
Staged photos composed into the black and white and coloured cycles – these are mysterious stories of Kočan’s fantasies that communicate in the real nature with the spectator through the light and word. Together with the titles for the photographs, they lead us into another dimension of the poetic perception of the world, nature and landscape, into a different dimension of associations inspired by the author’s impulses. In this poetic and playful mythology of his own, he creates his own vision of the world of fauna and flora, mythical and fantastic creatures – goblins, spirits, angels and other fictional creatures, shapes and extraterrestrial phenomena. Thanks to his “visions”, which he stages into a real landscape by drawing with light, using multiple expositions, assembly or collage using maquettes and custom drawings, he creates a playful, funny, illusive world of fantastic fauna and flora. The meditative world of light and darkness, the imaginary world of good, in which he seeks refuge and harmony. Below the surface of Kočan’s magical perspective, his poetic transformations and stagings in a real country, he inevitably brings out a new fascinating landscape in the midst of waking and dreaming, a landscape that calls for eternal doubt and relativity of perception of everything around us and within us.