Picture Yourself, and Woodlands, Forests, Life

Photography | Brian Rope

Picture Yourself | Gerry Orkin

Woodlands, Forests, Life by David Wong

Photo Access | 18 Nov 2022 - 17 Dec 2022

Gerry Orkin and David Wong are Canberra locals, and each of their exhibitions  here celebrates and explores aspects of life in the nation's capital.

Orkin was a founding member of Photo Access. He helped develop and deliver documentary and participatory photography projects so communities could tell their own stories.

With Picture Yourself, Orkin moved away from the traditional documentary approach, handing image making and storytelling to the subjects themselves.

Comprising images captured during Summer 1985, the exhibition is seventy-four unconventional, yet uncomplicated, artworks showing Canberra’s community.

Orkin set up a tripod-mounted camera in temporary structures at public events and invited passers-by to take “selfies” by squeezing a hand-held bulb to trigger the shutter.

The photographs include individuals, plus small and large groups. Orkin was investigating the idea that something interesting might happen when he asked people “who are you?” - to make it possible to show (not just tell) stories about themselves, in one photograph, at that moment.

The results are delightful and quirky. If you went to Sunday in the Park events or Canberra Day parades in that 1985 Summer, you may well have gone into the booth with some family or friends and posed for the camera. Whether you did or not, this is an exhibition every then resident of Canberra should visit to explore this wonderful collection and see if you recognise anyone. Indeed, even if you didn’t live in Canberra at that time, you will love looking at these people shots. So, do yourself a favour and visit this exhibition.

Prints of images are available for purchase in various sizes and can be viewed at https://pictureyourself.picflow.com/catalogue. Orkin also seeks our assistance to identify the people pictured and you can do that on the catalogue website. There is also a book containing all 74 images which can be purchased from Photo Access.

Gerry Orkin - Picture Yourself, 1985

And whilst visiting, you will also very much enjoy the companion exhibition. From an early age, Wong has loved nature and explored the bushland areas close to his home. The high-quality prints of his imagery on show are a beautiful collection of photos of those places - and what he has found and seen in them.

These Woodlands, Forests, Life artworks span around a decade and explore the different aspects of eucalypt ecosystems within local nature reserves – their variety and quality, their safeguarding. And also explores people seeking to understand, restore and protect them. Woodlands, Forests, Life is also part of a broader 2022 Eucalypt Australia Dahl Fellowship project.

The strength of this exhibition lies in its broad coverage. There are wonderful woodland landscapes, but also much more.

David Wong - Bruce Ridge, 2021

There are the elements of those woodlands, including a beetle, a gum hopper, a bull ant, moss capsules, a gecko, and fungi.

David Wong - Eastern Stone Gecko

There are images relating to the threats to woodlands and about the good folk who are involved in various ways seeking to protect them - a fence, a sculpture, a sign.

 

David Wong - Little Eagle, Ginninderry, 2022

There are even polaroid prints of the woodlands cascading from a wall onto the floor with an invitation for visitors to take a piece of the landscape.

All this is accompanied by an excellent catalogue essay by Canberra photographer Chris Holly and two great pieces of Wong’s own writing on top of two pedestals in the gallery. Here’s just a snippet from The Helpers: 

When the morning news

tells of apocalypse

They get to work

 

Writing letters

Chipping weeds

Teaching kids

Testing hypotheses

All the images and accompanying words in this quality exhibition should result in visitors getting out into the woodlands to, as Holly says, stand among eucalypts and recognise who you are.

This review was first published online by The Canberra Times on 28/11/22 here then in the print version on page 10 of Panorama on 3.12.22. It is also available on the author's blog here,

CITY COMMISSIONS - PORTRAITS

 Photography | Brian Rope

CITY COMMISSIONS - PORTRAITS | SAMMY HAWKER

Tuggeranong Town Centre (on windows of Lakeview House & under the Soward Way Bridge) | Until 4 July 2022

Installation shot - Under Soward Way bridge (supplied)

Sammy Hawker is a visual artist working predominantly on Ngunawal Country. She works predominantly with analogue photography techniques and often works closely with Traditional Custodians, scientists and ecologists.

In 2021 Hawker had two highly successful solo shows as part of a PhotoAccess darkroom residency. She is currently an artist-in-residence with the CORRIDOR project and is also preparing for another solo show before year end.

Over the last six months Hawker worked closely with nine young people from Headspace Tuggeranong exploring ways they could co-create photographic portraits. This was part of a City Commissions project delivered by Contour 556, one of seven artsACT initiatives in the Creative Recovery and Resilience Program.

Headspace is a safe space that welcomes and supports young people aged 12–25, their families, friends and carers, helping them to find the right services. Learning the Headspace motto “clear is kind”, Hawker realised her project was also about finding clarity as a form of self-compassion - shining light on what for many was a particularly dark and confusing time.

Hawker challenges the notion that a photograph constitutes the moment that a shutter is released. She explores ways of making, rather than taking, images. She wanted the project to be empowering - with no right or wrong and where the final photographs celebrated identity and experience beyond just the way her subjects looked in the frame. It was an opportunity to realise we always have some choice whether we repress difficult experiences.

The portraits of the young people were captured on a large format film camera. Commonly, in photographic practice, touch and marks on negatives are to be avoided. But Hawker invited her subjects to handle, manipulate, scratch or even bury negatives in order to introduce something of themselves. The young folk wrangled puppies, dived into rivers, got dressed up, sprinkled bushfire ash on negatives and processed film in the Headspace carpark.

Each participant was invited to use the project to reflect on their experiences of difficult times. Their statements relating to the images reveal resilience and hope.

Chanelle reflected about living in the moment. The negative of her portrait, showing her immersed in the Murrumbidgee River, was processed with water from that river, ocean water and permanent marker.

Chanelle © Sammy Hawker

Sophie spoke of learning to embrace everything in life. Her portrait’s negative was processed with bushfire ash and the word Embrace scratched into it. The ash creates a frame that embraces her.

Sanjeta really likes her photo with jellyfish manipulations as metaphors for how she now goes with the flow of her life journey. Her expression conveys a “so be it” attitude. The negative was processed with Murrumbidgee water, rainwater, seaweed and chemical stains.

Sanjeta © Sammy Hawker

Ray wanted to keep connected and bring some joy into the lives of others. The portrait’s beaming smile conveys joy. The idea of processing the negative with Whiz Pop Bang bubble mixture and wattle pollen adds to the joy.

Ray's Statement

Jazzy is photographed with her much loved dog Milo. So, of course, the processing of the negative utilised Milo’s pawprints.

Jazzy © Sammy Hawker



Devante © Sammy Hawker

Installation shot - Under Soward Way bridge (supplied)

When I reviewed her Acts of Co-Creation show (for which she received a Canberra Critics Circle Award) in this publication, I wrote of Hawker’s then newly formed relationship with Ngunawal custodian Tyronne Bell who helped her to learn about sites she was working with. For this project, Hawker arranged for Bell to escort her subjects walking Ngunawal Country, providing a healing experience for them.

I strongly recommended readers to visit City Commissions - Portraits - and reflect on your own difficult times.

An edited version of this review was published in The Canberra Times of 28/6/22 on the Capital Life page, and the full version online here. It is also on the author's blog here.

Voices of Veterans

Photography | Brian Rope

VOICES OF VETERANS | MICHAEL ARMSTRONG

National Press Club Building, | Until 19 June 2022 - by appointment only – bookings to view the exhibition or to experience insights with the artist can be made at https://voicesofveterans.com.au/events

Molasses! A viscous substance primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods. A major constituent of fine commercial brown sugar. And a primary ingredient used to distil rum.

I’ve eaten food containing molasses, seen photographs of it, even found a photography business with the word molasses in its name. Never before have I seen portraits of people covered with molasses with its thick, sticky consistency. Glue-like, tacky, treacly, and slimy might also be used to describe this substance.

Voices of Veterans, created by artist and veteran Michael Armstrong, is a collection of photographic works that visually represent individual experiences of living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). So is this an exhibition of artworks or is it simply about supporting a Veterans’ cause?

The exhibits are most definitely photo artworks and very fine ones indeed. But the exhibition is also part of an important project. Every sale contributes to the Voices of Veterans Fund, supporting veteran health and directly funding grassroots arts programs in Australian veteran communities. And it is always great to see art being used to highlight important issues.

So why use molasses, covering large expanses of the subjects’ bodies with it? Armstrong says "Molasses behaves in a manner that mirrors many of the symptoms of PTSD. Its weight and dark enveloping form, it's staining and sticky qualities mark everything it touches. The manner in which it mirrors qualities of light and dark around it. My models naturally resonated with the experience of working with molasses and found the medium profoundly evocative".

There are both monochrome and colour images - dark and brooding portraits, some where facial expressions are not easy to interpret, others where the molasses reminded me of bleeding wounds.

 

Mike Armstrong #3, 2022

Mike Armstrong #1, 2022

A very powerful one features a hand hanging down alongside part of a torso, richly coloured molasses clinging to it yet also dripping. Indeed all the images featuring hands stand out.

 

Mike Armstrong #5, 2022

A PTSD survivor himself, Armstrong was motivated by personal experience. Each veteran subject in the exhibition has a story, and their stories are told, expressed, felt and heard through his use of a challenging and rewarding creative process with molasses as a metaphor. The works show both sides of lived experience - the dark emotions of challenging moments and the light feelings of healing, release and hope.

Subjects’ own words are shared alongside artworks. One speaks of “the feeling of being dragged down into the thick, welcoming abyss until you are choking and drowning. Being able to barely keep your head up enough to catch a breath.”

So, the choice of molasses is enormously successful. The resultant images almost force you to study them. They are at once poignant and haunting, dark and evocative, graphic and expressive. They will bring strong memories or feelings to the minds of people who have family or friends who have suffered the effects of PTSD. They will remind others of different, yet also traumatic, experiences.

 

Mike Armstrong #2, 2022

Mike Armstrong #6, 2022

Mike Armstrong #4, 2022

Indeed, the created artworks have resonated with veterans deeply. When posted on Armstrong’s social media they reached a broad audience, creating high levels of engagement and many conversations. This sparked the need to create widespread awareness - and the project was born.

The exhibition will tour Australia raising awareness of the individual experiences of veterans living with PTSD, and veteran art-based workshops will support the creation and growth of healthy communities. Community events will be offered during the Canberra exhibition, including trauma-informed movement classes with health practitioners and veteran art workshops with Armstrong.

There is a gallery of the artworks online at https://voicesofveterans.com.au/art-gallery.

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

  

Mixed Signals

 

Visual Art | Brian Rope

Mixed Signals | Jess Cochrane

aMBUSH Gallery | Until 20 March 2022

 

Jess Cochrane is an Australian contemporary visual artist. Canberra is her hometown. She has been based in London for a few years now but has recently returned to Canberra for a brief time. She created new large-scale multidisciplinary pieces specifically for this solo exhibition, Mixed Signals. A well-known Canberra dairy product even features in one of the pieces.

 

Canberra Milk © Jess Cochrane (2022)

Cochrane’s work questions the relationship between society, consumerism and pop culture. Her focus is on feminine beauty, illustrated through the application of paint over photographic images. She paints highly gestural and expressive marks over the surface of glossy photographic portraits. This approach seeks to reflect our relationship to imagery and, particularly, to our own self-image.

The artist reflects upon insecurity and perfectionism in the modern age. Connecting the history of art, design and advertising, she plays on the idea of pop culture and its roots that are planted in both displaying and disguising parts of ourselves.

It is a body of work that explores themes around desire and semiotics through digital photography, which Cochrane styles in an editorial manner then embellishes with rough, gestural mark-making using acrylic paint to provide the element of subversion she has become known for. These are portraits featuring her friends, acquaintances and people she admires. By including recognisable elements and iconography that reference popular culture and identity, Cochrane reveals the reflective creative spirit that pervades her work.

Two artworks titled Carbs, and Guilt and Pleasure, feature the model cradling and holding substantial quantities of sweet pastries. Another with the title Gluten Free had me thinking “something for everyone” until I realised it includes even more of the same baker’s confectionery. Whether the goodies were gluten free or not, I’d be sure they were not sugar free.

Guilt And Pleasure © Jess Cochrane (2021-2022)

Gluten Free © Jess Cochrane (2021-2022)

 

Another work has cherries on a model’s ear, in her hands, against a breast obscuring the nipple, in the crotch area and on the fabric where she is seated. The boots she is wearing are painted over in red. The model has a dreamy, wistful look. What was she thinking whilst her photographic portrait was being taken?

Boots feature in various images. Indeed one work is titled Gucci Boots. They appear to be from that company’s latest collection, designed by Alessandro Michele, the Italian fashion designer who is its creative director.

Fresh figs feature in more than one work, opened to reveal the pink/red flesh inside – some held by the model, others scattered around her feet. And there are shucked oysters. Again, some being held by - and others scattered around - the model.

In one work, I’m the Pearl, a dark-skinned beauty wearing a beautiful necklace holds an opened oyster “containing” a pearl. A heart shape has been painted around the oyster. The model’s eyes, her full lips – indeed everything about her – shout to us that she is a pearl.

This use of cherries, figs and oysters is all very sensual. And the seductiveness is added to by Cochrane’s use of her paints – for example, by drawing attention to a breast and nipple by painting an enlarged outline of the same around them.

Of course, sensuality is also the condition of being pleasing or fulfilling to the senses. And that is very much what the artist is seeking to do – and achieving – with all her works. They dazzle with their sensuality, their colours.

 

Open © Jess Cochrane (2021-2022)

 

This exhibition is a powerful interrogation of our aspirational and perfection-seeking modern-day culture. It’s a collection of artworks unafraid to probe the historical conditioning of society, especially in the context of femininity, and ask the question ‘What do we perceive as beautiful and what is grotesque?’

This review was published in The Canberra Times on 5/3/22 here. It is also available on the author's  blog here.