Dark Matter 2024

Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope

Dark Matter 2024 I Rozalind Drummond, Claire Paul, Phoebe Kelly, Sari Sutton

Photo Access  I 25 October - 23 November 2024

The annual Dark Matter residency program at Photo Access aims to provide a supported opportunity for artists whose practices incorporate darkroom-based or other alternative processes. The residencies aim to foster the creation of innovative image-based works that involve artistic experimentation, critically engage with contemporary darkroom-based practices and explore social, political, environmental and aesthetic questions of contemporary relevance.

This exhibition is the outcome of the 2024 Dark Matter program. The catalogue tells us that, “using the Photo Access darkroom facilities, these four artists have explored materials and methods of image-making that challenge and expand the perceived boundaries of photography. Their collective works navigate the interplay of landscape, technology and natural forces through experimental approaches …. and site-specific practices.”

When reviewing the 2022 Dark Matter show, I suggested that whilst most of us are obsessed with immediate image creation, that year’s participants were exhibiting what a slower and more contemplative approach could deliver. That is equally the case again this year. 

Before looking separately at each artist’s contributions, I would briefly mention the different display approach used in some parts of this show - works of differing sizes have been grouped together, sometimes overlaying others. That, in itself, provides something additional for us to think about.

Installation image – Eunie Kim

Emerging artist Claire Paul uniquely combines long-exposure photography, foraging, and screen-printing, fostering a mindful connection with the environment through her deeply ecological art practice. Her portraits of place offer something of an antidote to the pace of our lives nowadays. She has used long-exposure pinhole photography to highlight mindfulness and slowness. Her artworks have been screen-printed onto handmade paper using charcoal and ash. She has utilized rainwater, repurposed artworks, plants she has collected from the locations where she has photographed, and other materials like turmeric and rosemary. Viewing and exploring the completed pieces is most enjoyable.

Wash, 2024, charcoal and ash screen-printed onto handmade paper (rosemary, recycled artworks, seawater, foraged plant matter from photographed site), 40 x 28 cm - Claire Paul

Phoebe Kelly is visual artist and photographer living and working in Naarm (Melbourne). She uses photography, casting and processes of material transferral to investigate the potential of translating the intangible into the physical. In this exhibition, smartphone photos serve as the basis for Kelly's prints, all bar one of them being silver gelatin. She has used those images as her source material, then translated and manipulated them in various ways to create transformed artworks. Other processing possibilities that might be employed are still being investigated. The group of pieces being shown here is also very much worth exploring.

A moving surface, from the series Two Suns, 2024, silver gelatin print, 40 x 30 cm - Phoebe Kelly

Rozalind Drummond is a Melbourne-based artist. Working across expanded photographic practice, performative action and video, her practice is essentially a nuanced exploration of spatial and natural environments taking a multi-disciplinary approach. She has used photography, videography and performative actions to engage with the concepts of landscape and place. In her works that are on display in this exhibition, Drummond has examined various transitory sites - temporary buildings, empty offices, and unoccupied spaces – revealing to both herself and us, new terrains. Once more, visitors are encouraged to look closely at the works and consider what they are showing.

Untitled, 2024 - type C screen print, recycled muslin cotton, 84 x 145 cm - Rozalind Drummond

Sari Sutton is a Canberra-based photographer exploring human impact on Earth, and related social, economic, and environmental themes through diverse styles. Inspired by Canberra’s Mount Stromlo – which is deeply significant for settler scientists and its original Indigenous inhabitants, Sutton has investigated “the invisible but felt forces of interconnectedness and energy – between us, the earthly natural world and the celestial.” Her resultant series, Dark Energy, is another excellent outcome from this year’s residencies.

Interstellar, 2024 – digital inkjet print on Photo-Tex 118 x 94 cm - Sari Sutton

This is the third annual Dark Matter show I have reviewed. Once again, the artists have delivered excellent works, demonstrating that the residency program is a most worthwhile one.

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

THE MIRROR Angles of Resistance

Brian Rope | Photomontage, Acrylics on canvas

THE MIRROR Angles of Resistance | PETER MALONEY

CCAS Lakeside | 15 April – 3 June 2023

THE MIRROR Angles of Resistance is said to examine Canberra-based artist Peter Maloney’s practice from the perspective of his gay/queer sexuality for the first time in his 40-year career. (In 2018 Drill Hall Gallery did survey his work from the preceding 30 years.) 

This show exhibits multiple examples of Maloney’s forms of expression – completed works, informal sketches and studies sourced directly from his studio. It provides a revealing account of his working method.

The curator, and artist’s partner, Mark Bayly has written “Maloney has produced a polymorphous body of work across multiple media, including collage, painting, photography, performance, sound and video. As a painter, his early commitment to gestural abstraction has given way to a practice of genre-defying bafflement. I suggest this, because in examining Maloney’s series of works over the past twenty years, I propose that they can best be mentally assembled and appreciated – as a puzzle – in the form of a funfair hall of mirrors.”

And there we have it – a puzzle to be solved. Walking around the gallery, exploring item by item, I was astounded by the variety and diversity. I found myself studying particular pieces for lengthy periods for a host of different reasons. In some cases it was to read then re-read text, as we might do with parts of a book or quality article – perhaps searching for meanings, perhaps revelling in the beauty of the words. A work titled The Rapping Nun fascinated me with its references to Borley Rectory - famous for being described as "the most haunted house in England".

Then there were the wall cases containing items we would love to pick up and hold and explore closely. And two copies of his monogram Fugitive Text we can pick up. And various complex mixed media pieces such as ‘Untitled (dune dream)’, 2005 – collage, photomontage, acrylic paint graphite and watercolour on paper -  which can be thoroughly examined.

Peter Maloney - 'Untitled (lies that life is black and white)’, 2018 (photomontage on mountboard)

There are numerous collages using black-and-white photographs (many of naked men) and portions of text from newspapers. There is painted text and works on paper incorporating text. The use of text clearly is important to Maloney and his art practice. It is also about him – his desires, who he is, his connections to others in his community.

 

'Berghain, 10am', 2014-20 (screen print and acrylic paint on canvas stitched to cotton stretcher) - courtesy of the artist - photograph by David Paterson

One work created on celluloid film shows two portraits side by side. Is it the same person? Identical twins? Unrelated look-alikes? Its title Michael: doppelganger perhaps hints at the most unlikely latter possibility. Whatever the story, we are drawn in to look and think – the artist is expressing his feelings and emotions.

Another work I Was Never Lost, 2014 had me intrigued for a variety of reasons. Why did it include the words “Schauen sie schnell! Eine kleine sterneschnuppe”, which translate to “Take a quick look! A small shooting star”? Why did it have a ghostlike figure and an apparent likeness of Ned Kelly on either side of an image of a naked man? What is it all about? This is today’s art at its best – challenging, intriguing, always pushing the definition, sometimes even bizarre or nonsensical.

'I was never lost, says Maloney', 2014 (photo transfer, acrylic paint, beeswax, ochre on canvas) - courtesy of the artist - photograph by David Paterson

Maloney has developed an eclectic and highly personal art style. Nowhere is that more evident than in Electroclash, 2002-12 which comprises sixteen pieces in various media, including paint on canvas, plywood, B/W photographs, phototransfer and collage on paper, and even an electric lead.

'Electroclash', 2002-12 (16 elements in various media, including acrylic paint on canvas, plywood, electric lead, B/W photographs, phototransfer and collage on paper) - courtesy of the artist - photograph by David Paterson

There are B/W and colourful large canvases - The Honey, 2010, Red Hot Hill Flattener, 2014 and Applause, 2002.

Peter Maloney - 'The Honey', 2010 (acrylic on canvas)

Peter Maloney - 'Red Hot Hill Flattener’, 2014 (acrylic on canvas)

And, wonderfully, a work titled Untitled (Greg in the studio), 2012 which is a photocopy of a photograph of a distressed photocopy (which, presumably, was of a photograph).

This review was first published in The Canberra Times on page 11 of Panorama and online on 6/5/23 here. It is also available on the author's blog here.