VIEW 2025

Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

VIEW 2025 I Cailyn Forrest, Adam Hsieh, Fiona Lee, Aia Solis, Emma Winkler

Photo Access I 23 January – 22 February 2025

VIEW 2025 shares artworks by emerging artists Cailyn Forrest, Adam Hsieh, Fiona Lee, Aia Solis, and Emma Lyn Winkler. It is accompanied by a publication offering insights into current photographic trends.

Cailyn Forrest is a Doctoral candidate in her final year at the National Art School, Sydney. Her practice focusses on examining analogue and alternative photographic processes through a feminist lens.

In her work Darkroom Viscera here, Forrest has transformed the act of photography into a bodily ritual, intertwining artist and material. The results are, in effect, a performance. They show us a female body, but it is not portrayed in a conventional manner. Rather the set of ten seemingly faded prints successfully present the artist’s body very differently. The artist has described them as “little experiments.” An experiment is generally considered to be a careful test used to discover or understand something that is not known. So, it is interesting to look at this series and consider how well Forrest’s experiments, whether little or more substantial, have improved our understanding of the female body.

16122024, 2024 - Silver gelatin print on hand-coated rice paper on board – Cailyn Forrest

Adam Hsieh is a digital artist. Guided by his experience as a queer Chinese migrant, Hsieh’s art practice seeks to explore the dynamic tension between places and place-makers. He uses multi-sensory interventions, manipulating systems of light, sound, moving images, code, and AI.

In I Didn’t Come Here for Love here Hsieh has used juxtaposition – wide-angle views of Hobart’s Mount Wellington alongside exchanges had with others on the geosocial app Grindr. Words from those encounters are superimposed on the well-chosen views of the famous mountain. The resultant video installation runs for 10 minutes showing limited movements in each channel as it screens.

I didn’t come here for love, 2023 - feature image from three-channel video installation
– Adam Hsieh

Fiona Lee is an artist based in Elands, NSW. Using installations, photo media, and sculpture, her practice engages with critical social issues, focusing on climate change and the post-natural world.

In her Future Critical artwork here she seeks to confront ecological loss and political inertia, arising from the experience of losing her home in the 2019–2020 bushfires. Using an inkjet print of video stills, a clock and audio, this work explores the lack of necessary action by political systems through visual disruptions, layering, and fragmented imagery. Their portrayed remnants speak to us of the destruction of our precious forests, reminding us of the terrible impacts the fires had on the natural environment.

VIEW round - inkjet print of video stills – Fiona Lee

Aia Solis is a Filipino artist based in Australia. Her photographic practice explores themes of learning, unlearning, and relearning through an experiential approach. Her work explores emotional tensions experienced in personal and cultural transitions.

In her work Taranta Muna, Solis merges past memories and present realities, using some quite delightful stitching on photo collage plus video. On her Instagram account she has written that this is “an ongoing project that reflects the unspoken dissonance of not fully belonging to the past or being entirely rooted in the present - a state of instability and uncertainty. Threads weave together images of past memories and present realities, creating a layered dialogue between control and chaos, seeking strength not in resolution, but in embracing the uncertainty of the in-between.”

These works were some of my favourites in the exhibition and I look forward to seeing more of this project as it evolves.

01 - stitching on photo collage - Aia Solis

Emma Winkler’s practice uses collage, painting and animation to explore the relationship between anxiety and death. She has a personal yet playful approach, inviting viewers to laugh in the face of death - or at least start a conversation about it.

The exhibition catalogue informs us that, in Shadow Puppets, Winkler fuses painting, photography, and animation into textured narratives infused with “existential absurdity.” I had to do some web browsing about that term, learning (amongst other things) that it underscores the conflict between our desire for order and the chaotic nature of the universe. Certainly, Winkler’s paintings (including a hand-painted stop-motion animation) here are fascinating combinations of diverse things wherein the end compositions to my eyes seemed appropriate.

Sinking Feeling, 2023, oil, acrylic and spray paint - Emma Winkler

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

Terra: (un)becoming

Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope

Terra: (un)becoming | Multiple Artists

Photo Access | 7 – 20 December 2023

Terra: (un)becoming is the outcome of Photo Access’ annual “Concept to…” workshop series. After nine months of mentorship from local photographers Sari Sutton, Mark Mohell and Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, participants were to create new bodies of work. 

The exhibition is described as reflecting on “the urgent need for the community to reassess connections with each other and the environment under the threat of climate crisis and complex global challenges.” The idea of becoming/unbecoming is defined as seeking “to challenge the expectation that we, as humans, must keep striving to become something or someone.” 

The 26 participating artists are Annette Fisher, Zoe Haynes-Smith, Saskia Haalebos, Toni Hicks, Adam Henry, Nathan Hughes, Joanne Hutchinson, Natalie Finney, Lynne Flemons, Alison Ford, Yasmin Idriss, Leanne Joyce, Diana Pearce, Fernanda Pedroso, Julia Platt, Caroline Lemerle, Margi Martin, Peter Murphy, Helena Romaniuk, Corin Rossouw, Christina Seccombe, Roger Skinner, Martin Skrydstrup, Sari Sutton, Ed Telfer, and Ruby Wilde. 

There are, in my view, too many diverse artists showing too many diverse artworks. Whilst there are some worthwhile pieces to examine, too many competing pieces does not always help. The title of one piece by Natalie Finney is another word that might be used to describe the problem.

Discord, 2023 - © Natalie Finney

I confess to being surprised that the works of all three workshop groups were being exhibited since only one workshop was actually styled as Concept to Exhibition. The other two were Concept to Portfolio and Concept to Photobook. Whilst it would be good to somehow also publicly share the results achieved by participants in those two groups, perhaps the works exhibited here should have only been those by the Concept to Exhibition participants.

Amongst the 63 works, there is considerable variety - silver gelatin and inkjet prints and “darkroom fragments” (some in boxes, others in a white lacquer tray), mixed media and collage, “photographic paper” on cardboard, commercially printed and handmade photobooks, a 3-drawer black box containing prints and a field diary, and even a screenprint displayed in negative sleeves. Exploring it all properly takes considerable time. 

Ed Telfer’s small handmade photobook maquettes are a delight to hold and look through. Lynne Flemons’ mixed media and collage on paper and Julia Platt’s print on cotton voile embellished with embroidery threads and glass beads are both pleasing. Alison Ford’s “photographic paper on cardboard” works are different and interesting. Corin Rossouw’s prints of minimalist images are pleasing. Fernanda Pedroso’s inkjet prints are high quality. Nathan Hughes has created a colourful collage.

IT DOESN’T SOUND RIGHT, 2023 by Fernanda Pedroso – installation shot

Profiterolé of Doom, 2023 by Nathan Hughes – installation shot

Caroline Lemerle’s set of inkjet prints Transient – At the end there’s always a beginning, 2022 (made before the workshop?) successfully shows her concept. I was able to discuss the works with her on site and learn about her thought processes. That emphasised for me the lack of detailed information available to viewers about each exhibitor’s concept – at least some accompanying words about what the artists were “unbecoming” would add to the experience.

Roger Skinner’s A Box of Nudes, 2023 challenged me to ask why images of nudes are sometimes hidden away - here inside wooden boxes (but visible). I understand he had more boxes, some plastic, that were not exhibited. I don’t know whether other artists also had works not included, but it is puzzling. In contrast, Adam Henry has 10 inkjet prints in his displayed series Remnant: A Photographic Journey of the What is Left Behind, 2023.

Another exhibit utilising a box is Martin Skrydstrup’s The Black Box of Climate Science, 2023. The most interesting item in the 3-compartment black box is a field diary but, as with various other works in the show, I wanted to know more about it than just its contents.

Yasmin Idriss has 8 works displayed. One is a photobook of flower images from her 2022 solo exhibition of the same name - “Delicate Delights” - at Strathnairn Homestead Gallery. Another Idriss photobook - “Journal” - is of considerably more interest because of the subject matter.

Ruby Wilde’s zine is the work I most appreciated. Exposure Therapy Vol. 1, 2023, authentically portrays the artist and her ways of interacting with the world in what, clearly, was a most therapeutic way for the artist. We should all have the courage to use our art in such a way.

Exposure Therapy Vol. 1, 2023 - Installation shot

Annette Fisher’s handmade photobooks are complex and not easy to explore because of the way they are displayed. Margi Martin’s “darkroom fragments” were somehow more interesting for me than her whole prints.

Catch the show if you can and take the necessary time to explore it all.

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

Aftercare, I am that I am, Transcending bodies

Photography Review | Brian Rope

Prue Hazelgrove | I am that I am – a deconstruction 

Emily Portmann | Aftercare

Xi Li, Meng-Yu Yan and Joseph Blair | Transcending bodies

Photo Access | 11 August to 10 September 2022

Across the three gallery spaces, these exhibitions come together to de-construct traditional ideas of identity and interrogate ideologies of self that exist within society. Each exhibition employs distinct methods in exploring societal definitions of self, suffering, and gender nonconformity.

Bringing tintype and collage processes into conversation, Prue Hazelgrove’s I am that I am – a deconstruction examines histories of queer visibility and erasure. The artist says she “is attempting to transform harm into healing through representation and reclamation.” 

Hazelgrove achieves her goals most successfully with her excellent well-constructed paper, photo and text collages. Close reading of each piece of text clipped from a Christian self-help book clearly reveals the story of each particular artwork. The act of having cut up the texts for use in the collages can be seen as having removed any sense of authority they may have had in the source book. Their use also brings vividly to mind the dreadful selective use of scriptural texts by those who have sought, and still do seek, to make people conform to their views of what is right or wrong.

 

Prue Hazelgrove, Too much Skin- I am that I am, 2022, paper, photo and text collage

Prue Hazelgrove, According to Gods design- I am that I am, 2022, paper, photo and text collage

A number of high-quality tintypes complement the collages, revealing with raw honesty the people portrayed. Using the tintype medium fits with its long-standing use for documentation and adds to the artist’s intention of reclaiming her right to “exist as I am”.

 

Prue Hazelgrove, Just a couple of good buds – I am that I am, 2022, Tintype

The catalogue for Hazelgrove’s exhibition also features a piece of fine writing by Emma Batchelor, a queer writer, award-winning author and dancer from Canberra. This piece, Ultra Visible, should be read intently.

In Aftercare, the artist, Emily Portmann, presents a video of her performance as she encases her head in a large pink roll of bubble wrap. Using a sheet of the same pink bubble wrap as the backdrop in the gallery for the video screen is a nice touch. The video is accompanied by a series of self-portraits taken during the performance, each exploring the emotional and psychological ideology behind self-care and wellbeing. In each of them her head has become a large pink cylinder. Hands explore this mysterious object, searching for something unknown to us. The catalogue suggests we are viewing an emerging parody of “a society in which fetishised notions of self-comfort, protection and healing coincide with the commercialisation of wellbeing.”

 

Emily Portmann, Aftercare, Action 7, 2021 , archival pigment print

Then there is a group exhibition by Xi Li, Meng-Yu Yan and Joseph Blair.  Transcending Bodies employs video, 3D animation, AI and printed photo-media to challenge normative ideas of identity and envision new forms of living in the virtual realm.

This exhibition explores how sense-of-self and social dynamics are shaped in virtual environments and brings into focus the possibilities and limits of existing online, untethered from our physical bodies. The catalogue speaks of the existence of hybrids of machine and organism being reality, drawing attention to the fact that many of us now have technological items implanted in our bodies functioning to keep us in better health – or even alive.

There also is a catalogue reference to the way so many of us use social media video games, phone Apps and other technological things on a daily basis, thus moving our physical selves into the virtual realm.

In his series Postcards from Hyrule, Meng-Yu Yan has taken the role of photographer within a virtual space. We see screenshots of this virtual world in a Game played during COVID-19 lockdown. They present as illusory or ghost-like landscapes, with an apparition here and a luminous nebula there. They are printed on a metallic gloss paper as postcards, suggesting they are souvenirs acquired from another planet. Each artwork is a worthy inclusion in the show.

 

Meng-Yu Yan, Postcards from Hyrule 5, 2021, inkjet print on Ilford Metallic gloss

Joseph Blair contributes two diptych works from a series The Tongue of Missing Lovers. Each comprises a photographic portrait accompanied by words about the subject and expressing a feeling about that person. They have an emotional impact if we allow it.

 

Joseph Blair, A Much Larger Tip (From series The Tongue of Missing Lovers), 2022,
inkjet prints, diptych

The third artist in the group is the interdisciplinary Xi Li. Here we see 8.5 minutes of  video, Brain Island: Hyperreal City. It is important to take a seat because the strong probability is that you will want to view it more than once. This is as fine a video artwork as I have seen. It draws you in, uncertain as to what you might come next. So much is happening all through this work that during each viewing you will observe something new.

Xi Li, Brain Island Hyperreal City, 2019, video still

 

Li has woven so many aspects of her own identity into this remarkable piece. She has inserted herself into the work utilising green screen compositing – a process of layering two images or video streams into one another. We see her various alter-egos and contradictory cultures, reflecting her lived experience under both Chinese and Western political systems.

These three exhibitions and their catalogues are each well worth visiting and spending time with.

This review was first published on page 18 of The Canberra Times of 5.9.22 and online here. It is also on the author's blog here.