I am back home, trying to readjust to another frozen Methven winter, and assimilate an overdose of creative stimulation gained from a 2500 km road trip over 23 days in southeast Australia. As much as we kiwis like to ‘compete’ with our neighbours across the ditch we have no match for the amount of artwork they have everywhere. The wealth of their country and the amount of money it allows to be spent on public artwork collections has generated a cycle of creativity we can only admire with a hint of envy. I especially like the way photography is respected as an artistic form, rather than being seen purely as a recording medium. As a reminder to myself I want to detail a few highlights.
Melbourne: a visit to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) was worth the trip alone to see the Timelines exhibit. I could identify with the opening blurb:Time is a slippery notion. It is everywhere and always moving but this powerful regulating force cannot be seen. It is only apparent in context: in the changing seasons, in another wrinkle on our faces, in the growth of children. Photography has a unique role to play in our sometimes poignant sense of time passing. The camera’s ability to depict ‘a moment in time’ – to stop the clock for a brief moment – gives photographs a unique capacity to direct our consideration towards the mechanics and poetics of this pervasive and mysterious cosmic force.It was a brilliant collection of work including photographs from Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Bill Brandt, Ruth Maddison, Rod McNicol and Rosemary Laing.
Bendigo: Where, you say? It’s a nice town north of Melbourne, not a huge place by any means, but a destination because an ex-Lincoln friend of mine lives there. But its local art gallery had collections of old masters and contemporary art that would put our big centres to shame – just another indicator of how valued art is in Australia. And in nearly every gallery we saw school classes using the resources.
Sydney: what a creative hotbed this place is. My main focus was to see an exhibition of Bill Henson’s photography. He would be Australias most respected photographic artist, and was great to see his large prints – around a metre square – selling for $30,000 each. And yes they were selling, 19 red dots at the time we visited. I had a special interest in his work as an acquaintance of mine, creative and technical genius Les Walkling, is a long time friend of Hensons and had quite a bit to do with him changing from fibre paper-based prints to digital pigment prints (the same system I use). Another of Les Walklings collaborators is very well respected, Poli Papapetrou. I was excited to find her new exhibition had just opened at the Stills Gallery in Paddington. I had seen early proofs of some of these prints at one of Les’s fine art print workshops so was thrilled to see the finished articles. Poli’s work really does set my mind off, very though provoking. As a bonus we caught the end and beginning of two exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Photography. They were portrait oriented, printed beautifully. Just another reminder of how valued photography is across the shores.
After all that stimulation I feel the need push my own photography a bit more; I have plenty of themes to keep photographing but need to work on getting more images printed and displayed. I have plans for a website upgrade but more urgently am anxious to get our new house with gallery/studio space built. Final plans are almost complete, hopefully construction will start soon.