Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery II

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery [Part II]

In the adjoining room, Alan Attwood presents his witty and humorous observations of water in Melbourne’s everyday life – whether it is a silhouette of a stranger seen through the National Gallery’s famous water wall window, or a pair of toes sticking out in the foreground of the colourful and iconic beach boxes. For Susan Henderson, the water is readily associated with Australia being ‘girt’ by sea – both its rocky beaches as well as salt water swimming pools, where the geometric patterns of white concrete are masterfully juxtaposed with the deep emerald of sea water. Emerald is also a key colour for Heather Peters, whose quietly contemplative Through the Looking Glass captures an image of a drowned tree, the whitish, sediment-coloured silhouette of which is showing through the reflective stillness of a forest lake.

As usual, Julie Millowick’s images are among the most poignant ones, especially her photograph of a drowned kangaroo, which reminds one of the devastating effect the floods had on Australia’s flora and fauna (one could not possibly think of a stronger contrast between this image, and the paintings of animal carcasses bleached-out by the drought in works of such artists as Russell Drysdale or Clifton Pugh). Carly Michael, on the other hand, presents a beautifully and carefully studied suite of photographs capturing the gentle colouring of the Lake Eyre, which for the first time after so many years once again is filling up with water. Printed on a beautifully textured paper, the subtle pink, blue, grey and white hues of Michael’s photographs create a sensation of a watercolour suite.

Michael Silver focuses his lenses on water and its effect on the built, urban environment. He creates an otherworldly, futuristic vision with his photograph of the Melbourne University’s flooded car park; while his photograph of Harlem Tango provides an interesting comparison to Joyce Evans’ photographs of Chapel Street, likewise showing the attitude of people caught in a downpour within an urban setting whether locally or on the other side of the world.

In fact, such unintended “dialogues” between works by various photographers occur throughout the exhibition. Greg Scullin and Geoff Strong, similarly to Susan Henderson and Alan Attwood, focus on Australia’s beach and surf culture; water as a ‘living space’ is addressed in the works of Kaye Dixon (floating turtle) and Margie McClelland (Japanese water pond); and similarly to Margie McClelland, George Mifsud also turns his camera to the cloud formations in the sky. Just like Alan Attwood with his pictures taken through the NGV’s water wall, Lynden Nicholls focuses on the intricate visual distortions of objects as seen through the running waters of the Tambo River. Nicholls is perhaps one of the very few photographers in the exhibition, who extends her interest and interpretation of water beyond the confines of the image: the frames are made from detritus found in the river, while the photographs are printed on hand-made paper, produced with Tambo river reeds and grasses.

Prior to the exhibition, Susanne Silver confided in me her concern about having an exhibition of homogenous images. Four Elements: Water shows that her concerns were unfounded due to the power of imagination of photographers within this exhibition, and the many interpretation a single subject of water can take within their creative vision and the ingenious focus of their camera lens.

www.newnorth.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is welcome with the full and proper acknowledgement.]

 

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery I

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery [Part I]

When Susanne Silver proposed in October 2010 that the theme for the next Four Elements exhibition at the New North Gallery should be water, there was no way one could have foreseen the devastating floods that the nature would unleash on the water-starved and drought-stricken Australia. The same sentiment was expressed at the opening of the exhibition last Sunday by ABC reporter Tim Lee, who mentioned that hitherto most of his stories for the Landline program were focused on the drought, and it is only recently that he had to switch his investigative reporting to interviewing people about the consequences of the floods in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales.

The exhibition gathered together works by seventeen photographers, including Melissa Powell, Peter Casamento, Gary Streer, Lynden Nicholls, George Mifsud, Margie McClelland, Michael Norton, Greg Scullin, Geoff Strong, Joyce Evans, Kaye Dixon, Michael Silver, Alan Attwood, Susan Henderson, Heather Peters, Julie Millowick, and Carly Michael. The sheer variety and diversity of approach of these photographers to the subject matter of WATER in their works is astounding, both from the point of view of their interpretation of the subject as well as artistic, aesthetic, genre, and production point of view.

The renowned aerial photographer Melissa Powell presented four images of recent floods in central Victoria, one of which conceptualises the incongruous dichotomy of the current weather situation: it shows dead trees (their trunks bleached out by sun and drought) are standing amid the chocolate sludge of flood waters. For Peter Casamento, water is associated with swimming pools, exercise, and health, or with the rain, which gives a perfect chance to read and reflect. Margie McClelland travelled the width and breadth of the world to capture water in all of its three states – solid (Argentinean glaciers), liquid (Brazilian waterfalls), and gas (clouds over her property in New South Wales). She also took an fresh initiative to consider at water as living habitat for fish – either in a Cowra fish pond, or more imaginatively still as a “Nemo”- themed float in a Rio carnival. Michael Norton’s installation of six photographs is perhaps among the most “artistic” and poetic within this group. He used his craft to interpret water as a site of reflection (in both physical and psychological sense), or capture the physicality of its movement. The printing and production of his delicately-coloured circular images is more reminiscent of hand-painted watercolour tablets than photographs.

Joyce Evans used this opportunity to present within her recent works as well as her classic images. In a suite of four recent photographs, Evans captured the light-hearted attitude of Australians as they stroll and wade almost unperturbed through the neon jungle of the deluged Chapel Street. The timeless quality of her classic images is quite remarkable. The isolation of the solitary jogger in her Hamilton Island photograph is even more palpable for the sheer immensity of the landscape that surrounds him. The photograph of the flooded Nathan River, with green crowns of drowned trees sticking out from the pinkish water, is readily reminiscent of David Rankin’s immense abstracted landscape compositions. The last photograph of Menindee Lake at sunset is not only remarkable for its saturated colour effects, but also for the dialogue it creates with another work in this exhibition, Gary Steer’s Thirsty Meanders. His photograph, taken nearly fifteen years after that of Joyce Evans, shows the same lake dried out, with a tiny creak weaving its way through the dry river bed.

… to be continued …

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is welcome with the full and proper acknowledgement.]

 

Julie Millowick @ New North Editions, Fairfield

Monday, 3 May 2010

Dear Diary,

Julie Millowick’s exhibition Close to Home at the New North Editions brings forth the incontestable evidence of the drought that has been affecting Central Victoria during the last decade.

The physical appearance and photographic processes of the works in this exhibition differ significantly from Millowick’s previous suites of photograms and cyanotypes. However, their narratives are linked semantically inasmuch as they reflect the artist’s continuous fascination, interest, and involvement with her region.

The changing local flora provides Millowick with the ongoing source of inspiration, as does the area’s history and folklore, which has been used so imaginatively by Julie in the suite of cyanotypes, Love Letters of a Chinese Lady, and brought to life in Close to Home through her documentation of mine shafts that pepper the landscape of the former gold-mining district of Central Victoria.

The effects of merciless weather conditions have been captured in this inspiring and thought-provoking body of work through the repetitive depiction of dry land, yellowing plants, and empty river beds. Millowick uses her camera as a divining rod to seek out water wherever she can, and in whichever state it may exist in nature – gas, liquid, or solid. It is abundantly present in such photographs as Crocodile Reservoir and Fryer’s Creek, but is only subtly conspicuous as the floating fog in Fryer’s Forest, droplets of dew in Bush Cut Mist, and the ice in Black Reeds.

An underlying personal narrative, reflective perhaps of the artist’s own intimate world, can also be detected within these photographs. The vulvic outlines of mine shafts and water holes surrounded by the pubis of grasses and dry reeds, the figure of the lurking dog as a metaphor for a predatory male as well as conjugal fidelity, and the gushing foam of a forest creek speak of physical, sexual longing, which is imaginatively expressed in this suite of works through the visual vehicle of nature photography.

The works are most meticulously executed. The low vantage point of the photograph puts the viewer within the picture plane; the realistic sensation is heightened by the crystal clarity of the foreground details which dissipate into the foggy nothingness towards the background of the pictures. The clarity and precision of the images belies their conceptual and physical complexity. Each work is composed of numerous individual photographs, which have been painstakingly collaged and overlayed.  This creates – and explains – an unusual visual panorama, which adds to the feeling of the mysterious in every shot.

Close to Home has been previously shown at the Ballarat International Photo Biennale and the Adelaide Festival. This body of work is a testament to Millowick’s dual talents as a respected documentary photographer and a renowned photographic artist, and a  showcase of her superior skills and technical abilities within the varying aspects of the complex medium of photography.

[© Eugene Barilo v. Reisberg 2010. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]