Review of Photography, Mixed Media Exhibition | Brian Rope
At Photo Access, 10 March - 9 April 2022
These three solo shows have been described as each sharing a fascination with the strange. They are said to probe notions that have long intrigued photographers in numerous ways, demonstrating the diversity of contemporary photo-media.
One show, William Broadhurst's Selected Suburban Works, imbues everyday scenes with a sense of mystery through abstraction. He presents a series of fleeting encounters shot in south-west Sydney.
The majority of Broadhurst’s works convey a powerful sense of movement and, if you like, blur - causing the detail of the content to be strangely abstracted whilst, sometimes, revealing almost ghost-like shapes and figures.
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William Broadhurst, Untitled#6, 2021 |
There are other works where particular content is more obvious - the moon is a clear presence in two works, in one seemingly hovering over a field of suburban lights.
Another work includes a person pushing a shopping trolley near the top of a hill. Others reveal a young person near a post and two youngsters alongside a soccer goal - doing precisely what is unclear in both images.
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William Broadhurst, Untitled#5, 2021 |
Yet another work features a shirtless man (the artist?) working with a whipper snipper, although what it is cutting is out of the frame leaving us to imagine it. Perhaps the image I enjoyed most includes, it seems, a blurred reclining kangaroo surveying suburbia from a nearby hill.
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William Broadhurst, Untitled#1, 2021 |
A second show, Gabrielle Hall-Lomax’s Fantasy Collision, integrates paint and digital manipulation techniques into layered photographic images. The works draw some attention to how human activity has transformed our Australian eco-systems. Expanding on environmental photography traditions - often used as a tool to raise awareness and educate us humans about the impact we cause on the environment - Hall-Lomax integrates paint and digital manipulation techniques into her works to reflect on the interconnectedness of nature - the body and the psyche are unified.
One work is titled Slip - whereas I saw a leap.
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Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, Slip |
Another titled Bushfires did not speak to me of that phenomenon - but is a lovely image, nonetheless. These are reminders, perhaps, that titles are unimportant to many artists and exhibition visitors. Whatever our views about that, these are fine images.
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Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, Bushfires, 2021 |
Yet another is titled Rituals – it shows four modest-sized, standing stones amongst the mist – an acknowledgement of Stonehenge perhaps?
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Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, Rituals |
And Touching the sun is a sublime work that deserves lengthy contemplation – for me, the most interesting piece in the suite of three exhibitions.
The exhibition catalogue says the third show, Jamie Hladky’s Reverberation Time, “uses flash to explore places that have been reclaimed by nature after human occupation, illuminating the power of natural forces and our futile attempts to corral them.” Hladky himself has told me that the work is not so much about decay, or nature reclaiming, as he’s seen written. For him, his imagery is about “the irrelevant brevity of our short endeavours and our moments of self-absorbed pride.”
The titles of Hladky’s works reveal only where the images were taken. Around half are of decaying building interiors and half of cave and mining tunnel interiors.
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Jamie Hladky, Gilgandra NSW, 2021 |
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Jamie Hladky, Yarrangobilly NSW (1), 2021 |
One shot of the exterior of a neat and clean motel located in a desert area initially seemed out of place. Asked about it, Hladky told me he sees it as the first image in the series to pull the rest of them indoors - demonstrating that it is always good to have opportunities to discuss works with their authors!
In addition to viewing the three exhibitions, reading the delightful “essays” in their catalogues is a definite must, especially The House by Paddy Julian and A Cloak Stands in a Bore Hole, Arms Extended by Simon Eales.
This review was published in The Canberra Times of 4/4/22 here. It is also on the author's blog here.
