Life in the Old Dog, Yet

Photography Exhibition Review

Life in the Old Dog, Yet | Brian Jones

M16 Artspace Gallery | 18 April 2024 – 12 May 2024

Canberra photographer Brian Jones says he is continually fascinated by the world around him, and that is reflected in his diverse and ever-changing photographic interests. He has a Graduate Diploma in Visual Art (Photography and Media Arts) from ANU School of Art. Previous exhibitions include his 2009 ANU Graduate Exhibition (A glass half full: portraits of an age) and 2012 Bowerbird Central at Hugh Davies Gallery.

Jones has written too often, senior citizens are devalued, dehumanised and seen as merely a burden. This is especially true in the aged care context, as examined by the recent Royal Commission, which emphasised the need for dignity and respect for those in care. It is also true more generally, with seniors often seen as just a demographic, with individuals written off as ‘elderly’ or ‘oxygen thieves’ of little intrinsic worth.

Personally, I am aware that some younger folk might not think much about the seniors in their lives. I’m a senior and not aware of anyone considering me to be a burden. For that, I am most grateful. But I do understand that younger folk with their own full lives might rarely think about contacting or visiting their senior family members. I also agree that some people tend to devalue seniors, perhaps considering them to have passed their usefulness. I once had a most interesting chat with my Vietnamese GP about the “responsibilities” of younger family members to care for their parents and grandparents. It highlighted for me the substantial differences between cultures about such matters.

This exhibition encourages viewers of the work to celebrate the humanity, dignity and value of senior citizens. The quality black and white portraits of a substantial group of women and men in their 70s – one is 82 – reveal people who are very much alive. Their expressions convey something of their enjoyment of life. These are real people, happily posing for the artist, enjoying the experience. The images are fresh. The subjects “look sharp”.

Di Cooper, 77, 2023 © Brian Jones

We also learn that the subjects are all highly active. They still contribute to society and enjoy life, notwithstanding the “ravages of time” revealed in lined faces. Apparently, some have had joint replacements, might be living with cancer, or have slowed down in some respects. But they haven’t stopped living. Their contributions include political and environmental activism, volunteering, grand-parenting and providing other family support.

Jill Jones, 74, granny, 2023 © Brian Jones

As well as the portraits already mentioned, there are equally excellent action shots – images showing these people are very much alive. They bushwalk, run, play croquet and tennis, swim, busk, participate in athletic throwing events and work on body building.

Bushwalking mob, Watson’s Crags, 2017 © Brian Jones

Bob Gingold, 72, croquet, 2023 © Brian Jones

Jan Banens, 82, hammer throw, 2024 © Brian Jones

Jones himself is a subject. There is a self portrait and an action shot of him throwing a discus. For the latter image he set his camera up on a tripod and activated its burst mode. His wife pushed the shutter release to trigger the camera into capturing many shots, from which he selected the one being shown. Of course, the exhibition also reveals that this senior is actively involved in creating photo artworks.

Brian Jones, 75, discus, 2023 © Brian Jones

Jones says the seniors he has photographed accept being ‘old dogs’ and showing a bit of wear and tear, but are certainly not ready to shuffle off quietly into the sunset. He suggests that senior citizens are an under-explored area in contemporary Art. He hopes this exhibition will inspire other artists to explore the space and some other old dogs into action.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

Volver (The Return)

Photography Exhibition Review: Photography

Volver (The Return) | Judith Martinez Estrada

Photo Access | 15 March 2024 – 27 April 2024

Two exhibitions running concurrently at Photo Access explore identity and memory, in quite different ways. Volver (The Return) is one of them. The artist Judith Martinez Estrada has focussed on migration as well. Starting in 2017, she comprehensively explored her paternal family’s apartment in Madrid, which they had rented for more than 100 years. Unearthing photos, documents and other material relating to her family gave her a significant volume of mixed media to which she has applied a variety of techniques.

Three babies had been born at the flat. Two people had died there. A century of family life had been lived there with all its highs and lows. The family’s history and the memories of all who had lived there was powerful and very much overlapped. As the relationship between the apartment and the artist’s grandparents, aunt and parents changed, so the memories altered – as they tend to for many, if not most, of us. As we get older we sometimes forget things long remembered. Sometimes we recall things from our early years which we have not thought of for a long time, if ever. Personally, my earliest knowledge of family history comes not from actual memories of the events but from hearing a story told over and over. Sometimes we are unsure whether an apparent memory is a real one.

So, what is the artist revealing to us here of this significant treasure of her family’s memories? Charu Maithani’s catalogue essay provides considerable background. Her documentation of the apartment became the catalyst in Martinez Estrada’s practice that brings together personal and political histories alongside archival and digital artistic techniques. Working with layers she creates a temporal and spatial juxtaposition of memories and objects. Each layer in the works creates spaces for remembrances to be added, including ones we do not know of yet. Layering allows multiple entry points and numerous recollections and half-rememberings to coexist.

In series of works entitled Family Biographies, photos and a variety of documents are held together using various means, such as rubber bands and paper clips. Has this been done to hide some of the past, the memories, the history? What else is there in the closed book, on the notebook pages not visible to us, in the photos hidden behind the top ones? Or are the assembled objects being presented to us as a symbol, telling us that the apartment which binds family members together will continue to draw back those still living?

Family-Biographies-Biografias-Familiares-XII-2018 – installation image provided by Photo Access

Another series Unknown Portraits uses strips to cover faces, thereby further hiding the already unknown identity of the people photographed at an unknown time in the past.

Unknown-Portraits-Retratos-Desconocidos-II-2018 – installation image provided by Photo Access

Two prints exhibited side by side share the title When God Left. The left side one spoke clearly to me of a god. A hand gesturing towards us is familiar to all who grew up attending Christian schools or churches. Here though we also see a nail hole telling us the artwork partially included is of Christ after his crucifixion – when he had left his earthly life. A video work tells us that Estrada’s grandfather played a role in the relocation and protection of artwork during the Spanish Civil War. Also displayed is a reproduction of an official commendation for that work. His granddaughter is now tracing and recreating the journeys he made transporting artworks from Madrid to Valencia. Did this painting of Christ belong to Grandfather Ramon?

When-God-Left-I-2018 – installation image provided by Photo Access

Old images of grandparent’s Ramon and Emilia are on display, overlaid on new images of things in the apartment.

Ramon-II-2019 – installation image provided by Photo Access

There is much more to see, explore and consider in this fine exhibition. If you are able to do so, visit the gallery whilst this and its companion exhibition (also about identity and memory) are showing. If you can’t get there, at least take a look at some of her other works here or on her Instagram account.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

Poison Berries

Photography Exhibition Review: Photography

Poison Berries | Janhavi Sharma

Photo Access | 15 March 2024 – 27 April 2024

Two exhibitions running concurrently explore identity and memory, in quite different ways. Poison Berries is one of them.

Janhavi Sharma is a visual artist from India currently living and working in Nottingham, UK. In this exhibition she reflects on her childhood and heritage. She uses orange poison berries from her backyard layered over images as a metaphor relating to the interwoven continuity of time. There are 32 untitled inkjet prints displayed in a single group.

Installation image – provided by Photo Access

This artist often uses food in her practice as a mutating metaphor. Orange poison berries are an inedible fruit. Growing in the artist’s garden they attract songbirds and remind her of present pasts.

The booklet available in the gallery about this show contains many very expressive words about the poison berries written by Meher Manda, a writer, culture critic, editor and educator from Mumbai (Bombay), India but currently stationed in the USA. The material addresses a range of questions, including Why, Where and What are the poison berries? I found those words enormously valuable in understanding and appreciating the works on display. the artist feeds on a photograph for more Absolutely true. But here the viewers of the photographs not only feed on them for more but also should feed on the words.

Scan of middle pages of booklet

orange diffused at the foot of the plastic chair, durable, timeless refers to an image of just that. It is a good image. I would have enjoyed it completely devoid of context. But what is it all about here? Again, Manda’s words: say what the memory of one’s own forgone story? orange provide a starting point for our thoughts. What are your memories of your own forgone story? Are they merely a delicate thread woven into the fabric of your existence? Do they whisper secrets to you, only you? What do they reveal to you of journeys in your earlier life? Had you even forgotten them? As we grow older each of our memories, once vivid – even alive, fade into what some have described as quiet chambers of remembrance. How would you illustrate your memories before they fade so that you might recall them from those illustrations in your later life?

Janhavi Shama, Untitled 30 – installation image provided by Photo Access

In another image a child’s face is covered with the orange berries. She is standing alongside the trunk of a tree. A child limp on the stillness of a photograph. Her memory: orange. Again, words to stimulate our thinking, about what the author is saying relating to her memories. There are more in the booklet for you to read and consider as you stand before the block of images. About a mother’s orange bloodline. About a tree promising life yet bearing the poison berries.

Janhavi Shama, Untitled 27 – installation image provided by Photo Access

Another print features a small bird amongst the mainly bare branches of a shrub. Is it a hummingbird that fed on the berries before they fell from the branches? But wait on, it does not appear to be an evergreen shrub. sit on it and fly away … regurgitated as a photograph …. attracting … hummingbirds

Janhavi Shama, Untitled 16 – installation image provided by Photo Access

There is much more, in both the images and the words. Read about the what, when, where and why of the poison berries. Then, as you explore the images, consider both what they mean for the artist and what they mean us viewing them, whether we had orange berries in our past lives or not. As this artist has done, we should dare to reflect on our own childhoods, to explore the intersections between our gender, our memories and our relationships with physical environments.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

MONACHOPSIS

Exhibition Review: Photography

MONACHOPSIS | Hilary Wardhaugh

CCAS Manuka | 14 – 24 March 2024

Speaking at the opening of her exhibition, local long-established career professional photographer, Hilary Wardhaugh, announced it was the first step in her new career as an artist. There was much laughter and positive response to that. Having long believed artists can emerge later in their life journeys – without undertaking formal tertiary art studies – I was delighted.

Wardhaugh has been capturing images for around 27 years, specialising in portrait, event, editorial and branding photography. But now, she proclaimed, a separate artist career was also underway.

In fact, this photographer’s website states that, more than a photographer, she considers herself an artist, activist/provocateur, volunteer and creator of community. It says her creative endeavours bring people together in the pursuit of a better world, her interest involves the human condition: irony and contradiction – and she also pursues topical and creative projects to highlight a theme or an issue, most recently climate change.

Wardhaugh has curated many projects involving women and photography; for example, Loud and Luminous (with Mel Anderson as co-Creator) and most recently a climate change project, The #everydayclimatecrisis Visual Petition, which achieved global recognition. Those projects have clearly demonstrated this photographer is an artist, activist, etc.

So this artist is very passionate about using photography as activism and demonstrating that through artistic, provocative and innovative means. And that is just what she is doing with this solo exhibition.

I had not previously heard the word monachopsis so turned to online sources seeking its meaning. I learned it is a new word, coined by writer John Koenig in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It describes the feeling of being maladapted to your surroundings, like a seal on a beach. Monachopsis is temporary for most people and diminishes when the unfamiliar becomes familiar and new routines and unknown faces become norms.

I now know I have personally experienced monachopsis as a result of being in a new and not familiar situation. I’m sure everyone else has had the same type of experience. But have we had quite the type of experience Wardhaugh has put before us here?

The journey that has culminated in this exhibition actually began in June 2016 when Wardhaugh saw the Queanbeyan River’s bank was littered with what she has described as “the detritus of the capitalist Anthropocene era”, and as a “grim testament to our collective negligence.” The sight stirred within her “a potent blend of horror and introspection.”

However, these exhibited artworks were created later. Wardhaugh visited Indonesia’s Bintan Island, and Greece’s Santorini. Again, the artist saw vast quantities of waste on beaches. I only saw pristine beaches on those two islands when I visited them many years ago; clearly our personal experiences depend on where we go and when.

So, this exhibition of artworks by this emerging artist is very much a response to experiences, revealing her hope that nature might reclaim those beaches.

Portrait of a discarded plastic sunscreen bottles cultivated by molluscs on Bintan © Hilary Wardhaugh

Feral car reclaimed by prickly pear on Santorini © Hilary Wardhaugh

Derelict building spoiling the natural landscape on Santorini © Hilary Wardhaugh

The artist has also created a site-specific artwork, placing digital copies of waste objects she found onto a long decal laid on the gallery floor. Her aim was to make exhibition visitors reflect on their responsibility to our planet. During the opening numerous visitors unintentionally walked on that artwork.

There is a very large print filling the entire end wall of the gallery space. And there is to be a closing ticketed event with composer @ruthleemartin who has created three new pieces of music in response to the exhibition.

Everything in this splendid exhibition encourages reflection about human impact on the environment. It transports us into that unsettling place to which monachopsis refers. Wardhaugh’s belief that art can provoke valuable conversations and lead to meaningful action underpins her purpose. And she has most successfully achieved what she set out to do.

This review (in an abbreviated form) was first published by Canberra City News on 17 March 2024 here. It is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

With Nature

Visual Art Exhibition Review

With Nature | Bridget Baskerville, Megan Cope, Wendy Dawes, Marley Dawson, Sammy Hawker, Annika Romeyn (curated by Alexander Boynes)

CCAS Lakeside | 10 February – 6 April 2024

With Nature is about environmental changes happening because of us. Six contemporary Australian artists address the issues, aligning the materials they employ in their studios to convey their messages.

The landscape has influenced their work outcomes, revealing our impacts on Earth’s transformation. Humans have the ability to collaborate, but we need to explore our frequent failure to do so with respect to nature. These artists, working in photography, drawing, sculpture and textiles, ask “how can we collaborate with our natural environment to better understand how to live a sustainable future on this planet?”

Kamberri/Canberra-based Sammy Hawker is showing a number of her marvellous salt works here. These photographs (created across the Yuin Nation on Walbunja & Djiringanj Country) explore repeated motifs presented by salt in the ocean. Her experimental technique challenges traditional approaches to film development and cultivates a deeper connection between art and nature. She allows the environment to shape the outcome saying, “the crosses and fractals feel like signs of sentience, marks of the deeper frequency” and “Earth’s oceans were created from forms of water that came from outer space – a combination of icy comets and grains of solar dust. It feels the oceans hold material memory of this interstellar resonance.”

Murramarang NP #1, 2020 – Pigment inkjet print 110 x 110 cm © Sammy Hawker

Emerging artist Bridget Baskerville has previously explored the effect of extractive industries on waterways around her Kandos hometown. Dead River (2023) shown here originated from a 2023 residency in Queenstown, Lutruwita/Tasmania when she explored how the Queen River, one of Australia’s most polluted waterways, interacted with immersed copper plates. A 2-channel video shows her work in progress, and a superb set of corroded copper plates created by an etching process in the water, reveal bright orange rust patterns. The plates indicate the impact of extractive industries on water systems.

Dead River, (detail) 2023, corroded copper plates, 2 channel video, dimensions variable © Bridget Baskerville

Annika Romeyn, another Kamberri/Canberra-based artist contributes more corrosion/rust in a very different artwork. This artist combines watercolour, drawing and printmaking processes to create intricate and immersive works on paper looking to convey a restorative experience of being in nature, focussing on the threshold of rock and water. Wana Karnu (2024) is a spectacular multi-panel rust and ink drawing which captures her experience of walking gravelly ridges in Mutawintji National Park at sunset. The work reveals rich colours of iron oxide and ‘rock rust’ formed when iron, oxygen and water interact.

Wana Karnu (detail) – rust and ink, 2024 on Rives BFK 300gsm paper 240X360cm © Annika Romeyn

Quandamooka artist Megan Cope, from Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island, is known for her site-specific sculptural installations, public art, and paintings. She blended art and conservation with Indigenous history and practice in her impressive large-scale midden installation Whispers at the entrance to the Sydney Opera House in 2023. Comprising a 14m wall and 200 timber Kinyingarra Guwinyanba poles covered in Kinyingarra (oyster) shells, it emphasised the resilience, and historic erasure, of First Nations custodianship, culture and Country at the world-renowned site. Here again we are asked to consider the role of art in bringing about cultural and ecological change. A single channel video reveals the landscape of country. It is well worth watching. It clearly reveals what we all should be looking for and seeing wherever in this land we live or visit.

‘Kinyingarra Guwinyanba’ 2022, Burogari (Cyprus Pine), Kinyinyarra (Sydney Rock Oyster) shell and stainless-steel trace wire Photo by Cian Sanders © Megan Cope

Wendy Dawes has created a remarkable perpetual motion machine, using an overhead projector with a deconstructed monitor to show, on a screen, permanent marker drawings on transparency film. A meter measuring power consumption during the exhibition acknowledges the artist’s personal use of resources and highlights the need for more renewable energy sources.

‘Perpetual Motion Machine’ (work in progress), 2024 © Wendy Dawes

Using chemistry, mechanics and construction techniques, Marley Dawson creates sculptures and installations that highlight some outlandish aspects of our world and ourselves. He is dedicated to pushing the limits of what is considered to be art and encouraging dialogue about the wonders of our environment and ourselves. One of his contributions to this exhibition is a stunning and high-quality artwork constructed from brass, steel and timber and utilising electrics to produce a mesmerising hum from brass pieces vibrating against each other.

Hum (Louis + Morris), 2022, brass, steel, timber, electrics, 184 x 71 x 6cm – Marley Dawson

Concluding his curator’s essay, Alexander Boynes writes “Together, these six artists demonstrate art’s ability to prompt introspection, foster conversation, and inspire action in addressing environmental challenges.”

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

Water

Exhibition Review: Photography

Water | Cristy Froehlich

The Link, Ginninderry, 1 McClymont Way, Strathnairn | 23 Jan – 3 Mar 2024

Canberra photographer Cristy Froehlich is so fascinated by droplets of water that she has brought them to life via her camera lens. In her exhibition, Water, Froehlich has produced images of her constructed interactions between water, light, time, colour, texture and oil.

Froehlich has a Diploma in Photo Imaging and gained photographic accreditation through the now, sadly, defunct – after 75 years – Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP). She was awarded the Epson 2017 ACT AIPP Emerging Photographer of the Year. 2024 is a watershed for Froehlich as she has just resigned from her Public Service position after a 20-year career. This will allow her to commit more time to her passions – photography and nature.

I have not seen an exhibition of this artist’s work previously. Indeed, my only knowledge of Froehlich was when she critiqued entries, including mine, at a Canberra Photographic Society event in November 2023. So it was most interesting to learn about her online.

You can see this artist’s works on her own website, plus Facebook and Instagram. You can learn from her by participating in her free monthly Be Curious Photo Walks (which have their own FB page, and there is a video about on YouTube). The more I read about Froehlich, the more I saw about her clear love of nature. She is soon to conduct courses about photo editing and macro photography for Nature Art Lab.

The nineteen images, plus several large acrylic tiles, on display in this exhibition were taken with the artist seated on a chair, with a tripod and camera set up. Froehlich has written “Water was dripped, dropped, placed, pushed and squeezed. It had oil, paint, food dye and glycerine added. Water was frozen, defrosted and soaked up.”

The resultant images displayed are eye-catching, graphic, conceptual and aesthetically pleasing. I have no doubt many would be delighted to have one or more of these artworks displayed on the walls of their own homes. Solidarity is just one example of a deliciously coloured fine art print matted and displayed within a white shadow box frame.

Solidarity – 51 x 51 cm Framed artwork © Cristy Froehlich

Frozen also has a range of colours but is a very different artwork. You might spend quite some time working out for yourself what plants have been used in its creation – if you think that matters.

Frozen – 51 x 51 cm Framed artwork © Cristy Froehlich

Not all the images are coloured in the sense that we usually use the word. Whilst black is a colour, you might simply see Disparity as a monochromatic image.

Disparity – 51 x 51 cm Framed artwork © Cristy Froehlich

Some prints are on cotton rag paper. Some are high gloss metallic prints. Others are described in the artist’s exhibition sheet as being fine art prints on delicate paper. Some of the artworks are displayed in white shadow box frames. Others are framed in black. And some have “delicate floating torn edges.” All reveal that Froehlich has an artist’s eye and presents each work in the way she believes it looks best. The variety in presentation is a bonus.

As already mentioned, there also are prints mounted on acrylic tiles. The artist speaks of these works as taking on a view of water or bubbles through water. One example, Escape, presents a quite intriguing image. It is described as taking on “the view of water when looked at through water.” Of course it doesn’t matter what it is we are looking at but, sometimes, the challenges of trying to work subjects out have a habit of drawing us right in. If you had this one on display in your home, I’d expect every visitor you had would want you to tell them about it.

Escape – 10 x 10 cm Acrylic block © Cristy Froehlich

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

The Entertainers

I have photographed musicians, dancers, actors and other artists entertaining in various situations over the years. Three A3-size prints on Hahnemuhle Fineart Photo Pearl Paper made (on my Epson Stylus Photo R3000 printer) from such photographs now hang together in my home. They are each off-white matted and black framed. Let me share something of why, of all the images I have taken over the years, these three photos hang side by side on one wall of a room in my house.

All three images were taken on a Nikon D700 with a Tamron AF 28-300mm F3.5-6.3 XR Di VC LD Aspherical IF Macro A20N lens. The captions with each image provide details of the settings and the post-processing. You might notice that I’ve given each image an ‘arty’ look during my post-processing.

For seven years now these prints have been, and still are, hanging together on one wall of a guest bedroom in my home. As there are rarely guests the room is also used to store lots of my photography gear, plus old slides and negatives awaiting scanning! I see the three prints every time I enter the room. They remind me of three quite separate situations. The people in each image are not specifically connected to the folk in the others, other than by their common interest in performing.

As I look at the three framed prints the one on the left, titled Art Magic, portrays two members of the well-known Australian group, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, performing on stage before a full house at the 2015 National Folk Festival in Canberra. Each artist in this group has a character name. At the left of the image is Rufino The Catalan Casanova, aka Pip Branson, performing a supposed magic trick. Pip is (and has been) in various other live bands, including Rufino and the Coconuts. As it happens, I have known Pip all his life and I often see him when he visits other members of his family in Canberra. Another copy of this print adorns a wall of his mother’s home. This print makes me smile every time I look at it.

Art Magic © Brian Rope
Focal length: 50mm. Exposure: 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400, Pattern metering.
Tone, contrast, sharpening & filter adjustments in Photoshop (CC 2015)

The print in the middle is also of an image taken at the 2015 National Folk Festival but in a much less well patronised performance space – indeed, very sadly, there was a tiny number in the audience for the Indigenous professional singer/songwriter Kutcha Edwards (a Mutti Mutti man). At one point he invited a man from the audience who had been singing along to come and join him on stage using another mike. The invitation was happily accepted, and the invited amateur artist is also in this image. Thus the title Art Pro-Am.

Art Pro-Am © Brian Rope
Focal length: 220mm. Exposure: 1/30 sec, f/6.3, ISO 5000, Pattern metering.
Tone, contrast, sharpening & filter adjustments in Photoshop (CC 2015)

Kutcha Edwards has been prolifically combining songwriting and activism since 1991, when he joined Koori group Watbalimba and began a remarkable journey that has taken him from the tiny Riverina town of Balranald to tours of Australia and the world. It is his experiences as a survivor of the Stolen Generations and his proud Mutti Mutti heritage that has shaped his diverse creative output in groups like Blackfire and The Black Arm Band. At the same time he’s also been able to forge a successful solo career combining his ‘Bidgee’ blues with traditional songs of people and country.

This print reminds me about the great contribution Kutcha Edwards and numerous other Indigenous artists have made to the arts and culture in Australia.

The final print, on the right, is of an image taken in 2016 and features a young girl seated on the ground before a colourful backdrop busking outside of the Jamison Centre, a suburban shopping centre in the Canberra suburb of Macquarie. A man using a laptop whilst seated nearby seemed blissfully unaware of the young flautist but, of course, may have been a family member providing unobtrusive protection. I always admire youngsters who have the courage to perform publicly in such a way and wonder whether they might go on to have a career in the performing music arts.

I made this print as one of 14 that I displayed in a joint exhibition with two friends It was called Canberra – Our Streets and was held at The Front Gallery and Café in Canberra at the end of 2017. When I look at this print, I am reminded of that exhibition. I wish I knew whether the busking girl still performs and, if so, where and how.

Jamison Busking © Brian Rope
Focal length: 300mm. Exposure: 1/2000 sec, f/22, ISO 6400, Centre-weighted-Average metering. Tone, contrast, sharpening & filter adjustments in Photoshop (CC 2015)

So I have these printed photographs of three performing musicians/entertainers on display in my home. Two of the subjects were well established, one was simply a busker. One is Indigenous. Two sang on stages. One of them performed a magic trick. The other had the courage to invite an audience member to sing with him. One played a flute on a public footpath. Three prints telling various stories – in a sense, creating their own music for me each time I look at them.

This article was first published in the February 2024 issue of The Printer here starting at page 23.

Scenes from the Mall – Photographic portraits in the Belconnen Mall (1989-90)

Photography Exhibition Review

Scenes from the Mall – Photographic portraits in the Belconnen Mall (1989-90) | Spiros Coutroubas

West Gallery, Belconnen Arts Centre | 1 December 2023 – 11 February 2024 

The largest shopping centre in the satellite Belconnen area of Canberra opened for business in 1978 as that district reached a critical population mass. It was then known as the Belconnen Mall, and many still refer to it by that name. The portraits in this exhibition were all created there in 1989 and 1990. There are three distinct sets of portraits, each documenting people in different mall spaces.

The artist, Spiros Coutroubas, has been practising photography since the 1980s, focussing on portraiture and social documentary imagery of people. His images are intended to document the present for the future. So it is most appropriate that these portraits are being exhibited for the first time more than 30 years after they were made. It is also appropriate that the exhibition venue is close by the now “shoppingtown.”

One set, Portrait of a Stairwell, 1990, captures passers-by pausing for the photographer’s  camera as they made their way through one of the mall’s parking areas. Asked to pose right there and then in front of a portable backdrop they agreed. Except for the artist’s father, who happened to pass by, the subjects are anonymous.

Essentially we just see people in front of a plain backdrop. There is, however, part of the stairs –  showing the shots were not taken in an indoor studio. Some of the people who happened to come by that day have things with them such as different types of bags – contents unknown. In one case, we see the subject’s bicycle. In another a man has a pipe in his mouth. Such elements, plus clothing, tells us about the time period.

Belconnen Mall Parking Area Stairwell, 1990 (1) © Spiros Coutroubas

Belconnen Mall Parking Area Stairwell, 1990 (2) © Spiros Coutroubas

Belconnen Mall Parking Area Stairwell, 1990 (3) © Spiros Coutroubas

Another set, Shoppingtown, 1989 (printed 2023), is very different. Subjects include salespeople, promotional staff and performers in the common areas and supermarkets. These include a Priceline shop assistant, two Encyclopaedia Brittanica salesmen and a young Legacy Day volunteer. There’s a woman staffing a Friskies Buffet dog food display in front of the cat food shelves in Coles (with no barcodes in sight). Presumably, she was not providing free samples for people to taste on the spot. Does anyone recall Larry Keith and his Wonder Dogs, or The Whack-a-doo Show?

Friskies Buffet Pet Food Promotion, Coles Supermarket, Belconnen Mall, 1989 © Spiros Coutroubas

Larry Keith & His Wonder Dogs,  Belconnen Mall, 1989 © Spiros Coutroubas

The Whack-a-doo Show, Belconnen Mall, 1989 © Spiros Coutroubas

In the final set displayed (a video as well as prints), Lido Bistro, 1989, regular customers of the eatery and bar have complemented their portraits by adding their names and other handwritten words on the prints. That provides an extra dimension of considerable interest.

Fred, Lido Bistro, 1989 © Spiros Coutroubas

Geoff Young & Sue Young, Lido Bistro, 1989 © Spiros Coutroubas

Harry+Pauline, Lido Bistro, 1989 © Spiros Coutroubas

Many visitors to this exhibition will know the now Westfield Shopping Centre well. These pictures acknowledge and preserve some apparently unexceptional situations that would otherwise fade into the past. Coutroubas’s parents ran the Lido Bistro. He remembers that times were tough – record interest rates and high inflation – the Lido’s books told the story of the decline in people’s spending. Sound familiar?

All the images were taken, with a bulky medium format camera on a heavy-duty tripod, in the mall’s common areas and in a supermarket during business hours without questions from management. They feature people who are socially disadvantaged, people doing jobs they might not boast about, people who didn’t have the opportunity to look their best, and people who opened up to Coutroubas with no clear idea of what would become of his images.

Today, the Belconnen Mall prohibits photography without authorisation and conditions apply to those that get the nod. Coutroubas has noted though that, “ironically …. images of people in malls are more abundant than ever. Social media provides plenty of candid pictures and videos from smartphones and surveillance cameras – people dropping their ice creams, tripping down escalators, pranking, fighting and even stealing.”

As well as the exhibition, the artist has published a book of the prints plus very readable words about the project. It can be purchased from here and at some Canberra bookshops.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog here.

Meeting Up

Every few months I write a column for the Australian Photographic Society’s APS Focus page in Australian Photography magazine, intended to encourage people to explore what the Society is all about and has to offer and, then to join. The following article has just been published in the biggest annual issue, known as the Photographer of the Year 2023 issue, of the magazine.

As published

Since 1963, the APS has conducted annual events bringing members together. For years it was a convention known as APSCON. In recent years it has become the APS MeetUp.

All participants make their own way to the destination – a different location each year. In 2023 it was Broken Hill. My wife Robyn and I chose to take a lengthy road trip gathering photos all the way. We drove first from Canberra to the NSW Central Coast, then visited Muswellbrook to view the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize exhibition just before it closed.

Then we travelled in a more or less westerly direction taking three more days with numerous breaks before reaching the Hill. For me and my camera some of the most interesting places were the tiny fuel or coffee stops in the NSW outback, such as the Emmdale Roadhouse.

Whilst at the Hill, we also explored nearby Menindee and Silverton as well as participating in arranged MeetUp events along with old and new friends from APS.

Menindee was a special place to visit as Robyn had previously travelled there by “bone rattler” train from Sydney back in 1967 when she was just a young woman. Going back to see memories from that trip to visit a cousin, a Deaconess with the Methodist Church who had been sent to serve at the Methodist Nursing Service in Menindee, was a great reason to travel there. We had coffee at the only coffee shop/General Store/photo gallery. Robyn asked the lady behind the counter if she remembered the Nursing Service and its nurses. She did – showing us photos on the café wall of the building Robyn had visited!

Another visit to Menindee the following day with the MeetUp delegates allowed us to photograph the sunset at Lake Pamamaroo. We only just made it for the sunset after our coach broke down and we took photos while waiting for a replacement to arrive and take us the rest of the way.

There were two MeetUp trips to Silverton. Firstly, we explored and photographed the town itself, the famous artist John Dynon in his studio, the Mad Max Museum and, of course, the pub. An appearance by friendly free roaming donkeys provided another interesting subject to point a lens at.

On the second trip we visited Silverton Outback Camels and photographed its menagerie of camels, goats, llamas, dogs, an emu – and a drag queen who accompanied us to various MeetUp events. An added bonus was photographing the sunset and the full “blue” moon rising.

In and near the Hill, we visited a variety of sites including Daydream Mine and The Living Desert Sculptures, each of which provided more subjects. We socialised with other delegates, learned from each other about our photography skills and interests, and participated in a friendly photo competition.

Robyn and I travelled home via Mildura, Hay, Leeton, Gundagai and many more small towns each providing further images to capture. I’m already looking forward to the 2024 MeetUp in Launceston. See you there?

Stop here in Silverton © Brian Rope

Terra: (un)becoming

Photography Exhibition Review

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 Canberra Critics Circle blog here.