2022 in Review

Photography | Brian Rope

2022 in Review

This time last year I wrote of local photo artists continuing to make their marks. 2022 has surpassed it. I have seen and reviewed 37 exhibitions of photography-related artworks, including videography, post-digital and networked photographic art.

It began with Judith Nangala Crispin’s sell out show at Grainger Gallery, which resulted in a Canberra Critics Circle Award.

JUDITH NANGALA CRISPIN –
On the curve of a desert track, a motorcycle hums in sand, wheels spinning, stars lifting from yinirnti and bloodwood trees

Then the first Photo Access show of the year, featuring diverse photomedia works by ten emerging, or re-emerging, contemporary photographers – including an 80 years old.

A Critics Circle Award also went to Michael Armstrong, for his stunning portraits of Veterans with PTSD. It was just one of the exhibitions this year focussing on important issues and groups in the community.

Mike Armstrong #5, 2022

There was Tim Bauer’s portraits of people and an accompanying documentary by Liz Deep-Jones, about confronting racism and bigotry. Flavia Abdurahman and Gabor Dunajszky revealed the resilience of Afghan Muslim women in war zones. And at year’s end (continuing into February), there is Hilary Wardhaugh’s work portraying people with lived experience of being disabled or of being mental health consumers. These are all worthwhile uses of photographic art.

There was more than one exhibition looking at issues relating to climate and ecology, educating artists and art lovers about biodiversity, heritage research and more. Most recently, ecologist and photographer David Wong explored different aspects of eucalypt ecosystems within local nature reserves. A group of 17 photographers led by Wong also produced a delightful separate exhibition about Bluett’s Block which is under threat from encroaching suburbia.

David Wong – Bruce Ridge, 2021

A photobook of the Bluett’s Block show is just one of the books released this year from Photo Access projects. There were three more in May, and another three in July. And Margaret Kalms launched her own excellent book in February to raise awareness about the illness endometriosis.

Lots of Blood – Margaret Kalms

The exhibitions seen include some shown in NSW. There was Ali Nasseri’s exploration of his local patch, the ocean at Bondi, shown in Bungendore. And there was a celebration of the cyanotype print displayed at Sutton Village.

Hydrangea © Ellie Young

It has also been a year of modest (or small) shows, including an exhibition of photos by someone who is not a photographer at CCAS Manuka. Jane Duong had just a few images displayed at ACT Hub, in The Causeway Hall – which is the oldest hall in Canberra and a listed item on the ACT Heritage Register. They were also cyanotypes. And even more cyanotypes featured in Claire Grant’s wonderful “Up in the Air” and a simultaneous members’ exhibition at Photo Access.

Claire Grant – Nothing’s as precious as a hole in the Ground, 2021-22

There also have been outdoor exhibitions – the Bluett’s Block one opened in a pop-up at the Block before moving into the Manuka Arts Centre Gardens. Sammy Hawker had a show in Tuggeranong, on the windows of Lakeview House & under the Soward Way Bridge. And Hilary Wardhaugh has had works on display in Queanbeyan’s No Name Lane.

Hawker was also a most deserving winner of the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize this year with her work Mount Gulaga, 2021, making her the third Canberran in succession to take out that annual Prize and, thus, confirming the high calibre of local photo artists.

SAMMY HAWKER Mount Gulaga, 2021

Two other female Canberra photographers, Lyndall Gerlach and Susan Henderson were amongst the finalists. Gerlach and Henderson were also amongst the exhibitors in an excellent all women show at M16 Art Gallery.

There have been great shows at major institutions, including the National Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, and Viewfinder: Photography from the 1970s to Now at the National Library of Australia.

My advice? See every local photo art exhibition in 2023.

This article was first published in The Canberra Times online here and at page 31 of the print edition on 2/1/23.

Sky Eternal by Cat Wilson, Up in the Air by Claire Grant, Wild Blue Yonder by Photo Access members

Review of Photography Exhibitions

Sky Eternal | Cat Wilson

Up in the Air | Claire Grant

Photo Access | 30 June – 30 July

The artists in these two exhibitions have used sky space to explore our human condition. They invite us to reflect on the importance of the surface of our planet and the sky space above – and the care needed to keep everything in good condition.

Blue moon. Blue Monday. Blue blood. Is blue hardwired into our psyche? Did it contribute to our evolutionary development – as hunter-gatherers who learnt to survive among blue skies and oceans? It is the major colour of the works in these shows. Most appropriately, an accompanying Photo Access members’ exhibition has the theme “Wild Blue Yonder.”

Trevor Lund, Exploring Scoresby Sound, 2022. From the “Wild Blue Yonder” members’ exhibition.

Across the ages, blue has been used when visualising something from our imagination, out of reach or the divine. As a pigment, blue is extremely rare in nature, despite being found in the environment around us – from the tranquil light blue of a sky to the melancholy deep blue of an ocean. Unlike particular reds, browns and yellows, blue pigment cannot be created from materials within our easy grasp. Arguably, blue represents an entirely new world beyond our own.

Sky Eternal by Cat Wilson is an immersive video installation, which mirrors moving cloudscapes. The immediate reaction on entering the room regardless of the point the video has reached is that one is looking at a Rorschach inkblot. I wonder what Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli would make of this slowly changing inkblot. Accompanied by an ambient soundscape, composed by Jamie Saxe, this is a captivating work. The catalogue suggests it “mediates on the ways in which the universal and timeless sky unites us all, a metaphor for innovation, positivity, hope and heaven.” When I joined them, I wanted to ask others viewing it what they saw in the inkblot. As they were transfixed, I couldn’t interrupt.

Cat Wilson – Eternal Sky, 2021 – video still

Up in the Air by Claire Grant includes three things. Firstly, there is a 90 x 400 cm composite of 57 A4-sized cyanotypes each printed on fragile paper ephemera that the artist collected during employment as a flight attendant. The papers originally were crew briefings providing details of routes she would be flying, so amongst the imagery she has created there is text and lines and also creases and marks – as she folded the paper to fit in her pocket during each trip.

The images are aerial vignettes framed by Grant’s ‘office’ windows, the plane’s portholes. They are, truly, landscapes. As the aircraft flew over an outback mine, we can see that open cut mine’s landscape in regional Queensland laid out below us. Some of the cyanotypes are essentially white images of the clouds below the plane. Others reveal different aspects of the atmosphere. We are looking at skies filled with navigational charts to and from different destinations around Australia.

It is also worth noting that the artist captured the initial works with a phone camera, making use of its technical limitations to obtain the pixelated and repetitive images that she wanted for her pe-visualised end product. It is quite wonderful.

Claire Grant – Nothing’s as precious as a hole in the Ground, 2021-22

Claire Grant – Nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground, 2021-22 (Detail)

On the opposite wall of the gallery is a series of individual artworks, each being cyanotypes and encaustic on washi paper – renowned for strength not fragility. Each image is framed by a porthole. Reflecting the recent period of air travel disruptions, many show terminal boards indicating numerous cancelled flights.

Claire Grant – CANCELLED(CBROvernight), 2022

Claire Grant – Up In The Air (Installation Photo 9)

On the end wall of the “aircraft’s corridor” is one further work – a large cyanotype portrayal of Employee 152578’s pre-employment dental record adding a final piece to this clever interpretation of Grant’s previous career. The whole exhibition opens up a shutdown world.

Claire Grant, Dental Record (Employee 152578), 2022 (Installation Photo)

This review was first published on page 10 of the Panorama supplement in The Canberra Times of 9 July 2022 and online here. It is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.