ARTIST PROFILE: MATTO LUCAS

Matto Lucas is a Naarm-based multi-media artist, photographer and lecturer. Lucas’ work (regardless of whether it is performance, photography or painting) attempts to interrogate systems of power (ie. masculinity, capitalism, world-building etc.)

Having photographed events, parties and queer spaces for over a decade Lucas’ photography work is informed by representing, celebrating and uplifting queer spaces, fringe cultures and subcultures and its peoples.

Brunswick Street Gallery, with the support of Yarra City Council, is excited to exhibit Matto Lucas’ Impossible Dance (ii) in our Ground Floor Gallery Project — a dedicated exhibition space to showcase the work of emerging artists based across Australia.

Who or what are the biggest influences to your work?

(In relation to my photographic works) I am inspired by the people, clubs, parties and ‘moments’ within the events in which I photograph. Finding natural and temporal tableaux and being present to capture specific scenes and interactions. In relation to artists, Rennie Ellis is my biggest inspiration.

What upcoming projects are you working on?

With Impossible Dance (ii) at BSG I’m finishing a multi-space exhibition project - Impossible Dance i - iv, which has been so huge for me and so great, so I’m just going to be enjoying this final installation in the project and the whole thing overall. I have a lot on, from design projects to other creative works, and currently just feeling a bit burnt out from application writing and rejection emails, tbh.

.How do you consider your audience when you are making an artwork?

I consider the subjects in the photographs, but I don’t think I consider the audiences. That is to say, I don’t censor the works or curate for audiences. I think for people that don’t patron these spaces and might find the images “confronting” I also think that the works can be a learning or entry point for them.

Although that being said, when I had the billboards at the Substation I did have to curate those works to be more ‘palatable’ and less controversial due to the public nature of the displays.

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Matto Lucas’ Impossible Dance (ii) is being exhibited in Brunswick Street Gallery’s Ground Floor Gallery Project, an initiative generously supported by the City of Yarra.

Impossible Dance (ii) is current until 29 May 2022.

ARTIST PROFILE: KYLE KM

Kyle KM is a Queer artist based in Richmond, Naarm and has been working with oil colours for over 10 years.

Brunswick Street Gallery, with the support of Yarra City Council, is excited to exhibit Kyle KM’s Gods & Not in our Ground Floor Gallery Project — a dedicated exhibition space to showcase the work of emerging artists based across Australia.

‘My passion and expression has been developed by working from life in portraiture, still life, and figurative expressions while taking reference from historical emotion in art to reinterpret the world at current in an otherworldly-yet historic mythology. Each painting is a purposeful exploration of colour and light.’

What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them?

I work with oil colour, pure pigment suspended in oil, because I fell in love with the richness in colour, texture, and the history that the art medium holds. After exploring digital art in my teens as the internet and technology was just beginning to boom I found myself constantly struggling with keeping up with technology while needing the most recent tools available, updating software and computers as they became too slow to function. Eventually I found love in the analogue world of colour, where I was limited only to my own two hands and my knowledge.

Can you elaborate a little more on your making process – how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?

The lockdowns really had me and my partner in a flow of journaling and creativity. We slowly built and explored what our mythological Queer world would be. These works for God’s & Not are an exploration of my portraiture into this mythological world. These works are developed with the sitter in person. Each image takes hours of adjustments and redesigning the concepts. The flow would find itself as the sitter would find themselves in the image I’d begin the painting.

How do you stay prolific? Do you have any particular methods to push past a creative block?

Since these pieces I’ve been making bad art. Trying to get it out of my system and holding no expectations or much thought on doing anything with these pieces. Sitting in the discipline is always going to be better than waiting for inspiration to come for me.

Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?

I love to be on my own. Uninterrupted by anything other than my own whims & creative needs. I find it allows for me to fall into flow state and the rhythm of my practice.

Who would your dream collaboration be with, and why?

I would love to work with Troy Sivan. Together I think we’d come up with such a fun concept together for a new artwork.

Do you have any particular paints/materials/tools that you’re really enjoying using at the moment?

I’ve been falling in love with rough bristled brushes as the texture left by scraping back the paint and brushing down glazes with translucent colours is so fun to explore.

What upcoming projects are you working on?

Taking Up Space as a massive 3 day event coming up late April at Meat Market exploring loves letters to your Queer body in all capacities. It is filled with over 35 Victorian creatives speaking and performing, plus the love letters and artworks for you to experience at your pace. I will be live painting 3 sitters from life over each of the three nights. Definitely something that a lot of people are looking out for with tickets already being sold through Eventbrite.

How does your personal history influence your work?

My experiences visiting museums and galleries all over the world along with mentorships in Los Angeles from a couple of my favourite contemporary masters have definitely influenced my techniques and style. Their inspiration to look towards the old masters to learn everything imaginable.

What is your favourite colour? Any reason why?

Everything thinks it’s red but it is actually orange... That blood orange colour that is bursting with heat and exploding into your retinas... Almost red kinda orange.

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Kyle KM’s Gods & Not is being exhibited in Brunswick Street Gallery’s Ground Floor Gallery Project, an initiative generously supported by the City of Yarra.

Gods & Not is current until 6 March 2022.

ARTIST PROFILE: JOANA PARTYKA

Joana Partyka is a ceramic artist and political staffer based in Perth, WA. Primarily working with a coil-building technique, Joana fires each piece up to six times in order to achieve her desired glaze effect. Joana’s work is deeply informed by the political context and attempts to push the boundaries of the ceramic medium, layering her work with both textural glazes and evocative, politically driven titles.

What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them?

I work with clay, and at the risk of sounding very cliched I feel that it chose me, or perhaps more accurately that I didn’t really have any say in the matter.

I find working with ceramics almost a form of self-flagellation. At times I really hate it but I feel compelled to do it. It involves a lot of patience, which I am not very good at. You form a picture in your mind of what this thing will look like when it’s finished, but you have to completely relinquish control of it at multiple stages throughout the process. You often end up with shattered expectations because there’s no way of knowing if what you’ve made is good until it’s done. It’s simultaneously magical and heartbreaking, and I think that’s why I'm drawn to it.

Who or what are the biggest influences in your work?

The single biggest influence on my work is my mental and emotional state, which in turn is influenced by whatever heinous shit the Morrison government is getting up to.

I also draw a lot of influence from things like space imagery, Landsat images and details in nature. I’m drawn to the ultra micro – like close-ups of wave patterns in the Swan River near my house – and the ultra macro, like satellite photography of the earth. 

I also notice that when I’m reading speculative science fiction like Le Guin it kinda seeps into my work. It’s a big melange of disparate things that in my mind all fit together, which I think goes some way to explaining my aesthetic.

How do you consider your audience when you are making an artwork?

I used to think about audience a lot maybe a year or two ago, and I felt so deeply disconnected from what I was making. When I decided in a bit of a fit of rage that I was bored with what I was making is when my current style emerged. I didn’t expect anyone to like it but was really pleasantly surprised when people started to connect with it. The funny thing is when I didn’t have much of an audience I exhausted myself thinking about it, and now that I have an actual audience I don’t consider it all during the making process.

How has your practice changed in the last 12 months?

It’s completely transformed. Around the time of the bushfires and then rolling into the start of the pandemic, I had so much despair and rage bubbling inside me that I didn’t know what to do with. I’ve always been very politically aware but late 2019/early 2020 was some next-level bullshit that’s only snowballed as time has gone on. 

It sounds a bit trite but I’ve channelled that into my ceramics practice. I use a method I’ve joking/not jokingly dubbed ‘rage-building’, because when I’m working I carry my rage right at the surface; it comes through in the wonky forms and textured surfaces. It’s almost as though being that angry about what’s going on in the world has just made me go ‘fuck it, who cares’.

When I look at my work over the past year I can see exactly what was going on in my life and the world, and how I felt about it. A curator friend of mine described it recently as a “warped calendar” and I really love that.

What is an essential, touchstone artwork for you––one favourite work from art history that you would love to have on your wall/in your life? Why this one?

I don’t know if I can pick one artwork specifically but I can pick an artist: Joan Miró. I’ve been enamoured by Miró’s work since I was a teenager - the bright use of colour, the bold shapes, the movement and energy, the surreal playfulness, the abandonment of convention. I’d be super happy to have any of his pieces hanging in my house.

ARTIST PROFILE: AYMAN KAAKE

Ayman Kaake is a Melbourne based photographic artist, whose surreal and cinematic scenes draw from his personal histories and act as both a means of emotional reflection for the artist while offering a contemplative scene into which the viewer can lose themselves.

What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them?

I used to illustrate my thoughts a lot using pencil, drawing things that I would love to execute in the future. My illustration was surrealistic and I found with digital photography I can create the world that I am illustrating through composite and the possibilities were beyond my imagination. In 2015 I bought my first camera and I started with self-portraits as a practice and this is how my love to photography started.

Can you elaborate a little more on your making process—how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?

My making process with each art work starts with an illustration of the idea, hunting for or making props, to then creating the whole scene from set design, styling the outfit, executing the idea. The final process is the post production and make it ready for printing.

Who or what are the biggest influences in your work?

Movies and music are my all-time biggest influences in my work. During my cinematography study, my teacher introduced me to Andrei tarkovsky’s movies, I remember how his work teleported me into his world and though it’s magic to create connection between our two worlds. Reflecting this surreal and otherworldly expression, I have similarly combined my journey leaving home and family to speak about my feelings through these images.

Do you share your studio with anyone, or do you work alone? Is community an important element in your creative process?

I’m blessed to be an artist in residence at Collingwood yards through the Room to Create program, which offers a big studio space for six artists, all working with a range of art practices. To have this opportunity, working alongside these artists and with this incredible community around me, has inspired me to experiment more with different mediums and has really pushed me outside my comfort zone.

What is your favourite colour? Any reason why?

Teal used to be my favourite colour. It reminded me of my childhood best friend, she used to live in a house with teal colour door, and every time the school bus stopped to pick her up, I would stare at this door waiting for her. Now every time I see this colour, it brings me happiness and I feel secure. But now my favourite colour is Pink because I have been verbally attacked on the street by middle age man while I was wearing pink, and according to him, men shouldn’t be wearing this colour. So now it’s my favourite rebellion colour and I am embracing it.

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Ayman’s debut collection of digital photographs are available for purchase in our Stockroom

artist profile: edie atkins

Edie Atkins is best known for her Melbourne suburban backyard paintings. Especially poignant after the events of the past year, a principle theme in her work is simple beauty in the ordinary – particularly, the observance of our immediate surroundings that can offer us surprising delights.

Edie Atkins’ minimal brush strokes, colour, and style are an effort to capture an intimate and heightened sense of an image. A Melbourne-based artist, she has worked in numerous projects as an illustrator and across mediums and is currently working with oil and acrylic paint.

‘My latest paintings are of Merri Creek in Melbourne. I wanted to capture the feeling of visiting Merri Creek, of being under the shade and listening to the water.

I have always liked looking at how light and shadow fall on objects, and I try to capture that within my work.’

– Edie Atkins

Tell us a bit about what a day may look like for you as an artist. Where are you based and what are some of the things that you do in your daily routine? Tell us about your morning rituals, your cup of tea/coffee, plants, etc!

I don’t have a strict morning ritual, apart from coffee. If I’ve had a good day painting the day before I wake excited to see my work again. If I’ve had an unsuccessful day before I am excited to see what I will create next. There’s a lot of looking when painting, just looking and thinking.

How did you start your creative practice and why? Are you self-taught, an art student, a full-time artist, etc?

I never thought I would be a painter. I always thought was better at drawing. Jess McCaughey asked me to be in a group show at Tinning St Gallery about magpies called “Ode to the Magpie”. I wanted to show magpies in a suburban backyard. I painted two backyards with magpies using acrylic paint and a thick brush and I really liked the process. I ended up painting 30 backyards and having a backyard show. My latest paintings are of The Merri Merri Creek in Melbourne. I wanted to capture the feeling of visiting Merri Creek, under the shade and listening to the water. I am self taught however my year 12 art teacher, Peter O’Gorman, set me up for a life of visual art making. I have always liked looking at how light and shadow fall on objects, and I try to capture that.

Have you got a studio/creative workplace? Tell us a bit about where you create and some of the significant things that support and inspire your practice.

I live and paint in the same space. I sometimes lose track of time when painting, work into the night, and that’s the best. I have a lot of native flowers that have dried out around my studio. Their faded earthy colours, smells and shape are inspiring. I get inspired by looking at and reading about artists’ work. I recently discovered photographer Henry Wessel and I am currently reading Karl Ove Knausgaard’s The Art of Edvard Munch.

What are some of the ideas that you explore in your work and the mediums that you have chosen to work with?

During lockdown I did more research on oil painting. I love how thin you can make oil paint by combining different mediums. Oil paint is easily wiped away so it lends itself to more experimenting. It’s more like sculpting with paint on a flat surface. I never draw on a canvas before I start.

Let us know about any current/future projects – Have you got anything planned in the near future?

I’m into still life painting at the moment. I’m an infrequent potter and I’ve made some Morandi-esque vases. During lockdown I painted those with the dried flowers. I met a painter named Audrey Kearns at The Workers’ Club a few years ago. We kept in contact and share similar painting ideas. We plan to show our work together in a show this year.

Edie Atkins latest Stockroom collection can be view online here.

ARTIST PROFILE: SIMONE LINSSEN

Simone Linssen has been an artist for as long as she can remember. First becoming serious about a career in art while living on the Sunshine Coast, Simone completed a Diploma of Visual Art in Noosa. After graduating, she had a few years away from the brushes and became an area manager for a retail company. It was only after visiting some of the most beautiful galleries and artworks during a trip to Europe in 2011 that prompted Simone to take control of her artistic career. She packed up her life and moved to Brisbane to complete a Bachelor of Fine Art, and though it was difficult leaving everything behind and starting again, it became one of the best decisions she’s ever made. Simone now works as a Curator and Gallery Director, managing exhibitions, art awards, auctions and international art fairs.

“While completing my Bachelor of Fine Art I became interested in anxiety and loneliness and have continued to work with these subjects through my paintings. Through research I came to understand anxiety and loneliness affects a significant part of the population and its effects are widespread. I find art is important for understanding these emotions in contemporary culture, being able to provide a positive response through self-reflection, empathy and understanding.” – Simone Linssen.

What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them?

I work with oil on canvas mostly. I started out mostly with drawing but moved to painting in 2006. I found painting to be more difficult but much more rewarding.

Can you elaborate a little more on your making process — how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?

I usually start with a message I would like to portray, then think about the ways I can portray it with mark making, colours and compositions. I make a series of sketches in a visual diary. The next step is to recreate the ideas with photography which I use as reference images. From there I create final compositions which then translates to a canvas. I choose the canvas size depending on the message I’m trying to portray. Smaller canvases for more intimate and personal works, large canvases are chosen for a more overwhelming message. The colour scheme is usually chosen as the last step when I’m firm on the final message I wish to convey.

Who or what are the biggest influences on your work?

I have a few. Francis Bacon’s ‘Figure with a Wash Basin’ was a big influence. I love the way he captured a moment of hysteria, featuring a figure trying to escape through a wash basin. My works often explore elements of anxiety and needing to hide in obscure places. Anne Wallace is another big inspiration with her use of suspense and creeping dread throughout her paintings. Madonna Staunton’s use of interiors and colours is also a big inspiration.

How do you keep your creative juices flowing? How do you push past creative block?

Going to an art gallery or listening to astrophysics podcasts usually works for me, something about delving in to some new and exciting ways of thinking. If that doesn’t work… Just keep working! Something will eventually come about even if there’s a few failures before the gems.

Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?

While studying I had a little studio space on the Brisbane river with a lot of other students. It was a great space for feeding off other people’s ideas. I now have my own studio space at home. It’s different not being able to bounce ideas off other people, but on the plus side I’m able to really delve in to ideas without being interrupted. It’s a cosy space with views of the garden. I have a cabinet full of my favourite artworks, trinkets and books, which is great for inspiration.

If you could go on an Artist’s Residency anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?

Adrien Ghenie… He is my absolute favourite artist.

What’s next for you after your time at Brunswick Street Gallery? What upcoming projects are you working on now?

I’ve started working towards a new body of work which is a carry on from ‘Duality’. Featuring figures in interiors and some landscapes, tackling issues of anxiety and loneliness. I’m currently working on a few similar to ‘Wallflower IV’, featuring figures attempting to hide in ridiculous places in a moment of panic.

Simone Linssen’s solo exhibition, Duality is currently on exhibition until 28 March. View the catalogue here.

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SMALL WORKS ART PRIZE: ROZALIE SHERWOOD

Rozalie Sherwood is the recipient of the Clifroy Prize – First Prize at Brunswick Street Gallery’s Small Works Art Prize.

Living and working in the ACT, Rozalie Sherwood is an artist who has textiles at the heart of her work. Her practice is to develop conceptual work that embodies the emotion generated by a story or an experience. She aims for her work to be a container for those stories and experiences.

What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them?

My favoured materials are textiles and inks and I am drawn to using recycled fabrics and objects. Using intuitive lines in preference to precision, I embrace and highlight the accidental in my work. And I love to create surprise by combining textiles and thread with harder edged surfaces, sometimes acrylic sheeting or plastic tubing.

Textiles have always been a big part of my life. And my background and training in the fashion industry gave me a love for and familiarity with the medium.

Can you elaborate a little more on your making process — how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?           

As an example, recent work has come from a month long stay in Goma, on the eastern border of Congo (DRC) in 2019. It’s a country that’s been disrupted by war, poverty, corruption and tribalism. In that environment, women’s lives are incredibly difficult and dangerous.

As I started making each work, I realised that there was a particular story on my mind that I wanted to tell, and that it came from my observations, experiences and conversations with people, mostly women. And making the work was helpful to me in processing the experience and in allowing me to keep telling that story without boring people.

 Sometimes I put quite a lot of planning into a piece, and at other times only a little. An idea can come from an experience, a news headline, beautifully written words…. Initially I make notes in a particular notebook and ideas can sit with me for quite a long time. When I’m working towards an exhibition I start a Word document that I progressively make more notes in, adding to it every few days as I’m developing the idea into a piece of work and the story that I want to tell that relates to the theme of the exhibition.

When I get down to making, I have learned to do a little and then stand back for a while. I have also learned that it works best for me to have several pieces on the go all the time: painting on one, stitching on another, looking from one piece to another, working out where to go next.

Who or what are the biggest influences on your work? 

I am inspired by telling a story, by using my work as my voice because I can make it stronger and longer-lasting than my physical voice in many ways.

Seeing other artists’ work and visits to galleries are also important to me. Often after visiting galleries I seem to have fresh ideas that have nothing to do with what I’ve just seen. It seems as if ideas are waiting to be found in the atmosphere.  

There are artists on Instagram that I follow, people whose work I admire. But I try not to spend too much time there. It’s too easy to start comparing your own work with others.

How do you keep your creative juices flowing? How do you push past creative block?

My nature is fairly self-disciplined and I aim to do something in my workroom every day, even if it is a less creative task. Setting deadlines by arranging meetings with artist friends at which we show each other what we’re working on, drives me to have work ready to show. It is very helpful to have a group of people who ask good questions and are able to highlight what is working well and why.

Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?

I work at home in a north facing room that was intended to be the main bedroom in my house. So the walk-in wardrobe is a storage space for all the materials and objects I collect. My workroom has to double as a guest room from time to time, which forces me to clean up. But it’s warm in winter and has good natural light so I’m happy in there with my sewing machines and the paraphernalia of creating.

If you could go on an Artist’s Residency anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?

Either the city of Melbourne or Paris… actually anywhere in Europe.

What’s next for you after your time at Brunswick Street Gallery? What upcoming projects are you working on now?

In October this year I’m exhibiting with two colleagues at the M16 Artspace in Canberra. Also, I’m a member of the Networks Australia artists group in Canberra and we have shows coming up - in March at Altenburg Gallery in Braidwood, in April at the Basil Sellers Exhibition Space in Moruya, and two in 2022 in Grenfell and in Queanbeyan (all in NSW).

What does your selection as one of the winners of this SMALL WORKS ART PRIZE mean to you, and to the future of your practice? 

It’s very exciting for me personally to have had my work selected, but it also provides an opportunity for me to highlight the plight of Congo and generate interest. I was so ignorant about the reality of life for people there and I barely know anything now, having only spent a month there, but I want people to know something about Congo. To have some information so as to be able to connect with Congolese people who might come here to live.

I am also very pleased for my fellow textile artists as art has not always been a level playing field for those who choose to work with textiles.

The judge, Elizabeth McCallum’s, statement about my work has given me confidence that it is telling an effective story. And I’m encouraged to continue to find ways to use my work as my voice.

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Awarded the Clifroy Prize – First Prize, Rozalie Sherwood receives a $3000 cash prize (non-acquisitive) from Clifton Hill/North Fitzroy Community Bank.

ARTIST PROFILE: KIM PASSALAQUA

Our latest Artist Profile is with artist Kim Passalaqua, whose exhibition Landmarks is currently presented at Brunswick Street Gallery.

Kim Passalaqua is an artist who has immersed herself in the topography of Australia’s landscapes in recent years and as our climate has hardened, Kim’s inclination has become more abstract.  The natural processes of erosion and weather create a canvas, which is always changing. The colours, shapes, patterns and tones become the visual cues to create landscapes from these ancient surfaces. Kim draws inspiration from the beauty of local landscapes and also the harsh beauty of the raw Australian outback. 

“I love to paint many different subjects but it is the landscape which is drawing me to the canvas at the moment.  When I say, canvas, I really mean many media and mediums as I am not content to paint using just one medium so I often move between acrylic or oil on canvas, to watercolour, gouache or mixed media. 

Can you elaborate a little more on your making process — how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?

For the past 2 years, the banks of the Murray River has been my studio, a place where I can feel and touch the ancient ground that has formed the river courses. The concept of my latest exhibition is to mimic the rise and fall of the river. A powerful entity that ebbs and flows and sculpts the landscape. Sometimes forcefully, sometimes peacefully. I want the audience to connect with this force, the feeling of the river. When painting on the river banks I immerse myself in the river ecosystem so the finished canvas lives in that environment too. By the river, I slow things down, to observe and capture this ephemeral beauty in our environment.

Who or what are the biggest influences to your work?

I often channel John Wolseley and consider his expedition to the desert leaving paper in the sands to absorb the surrounding environment. Central to my artistic practice is “the desire to go into the wilderness and enter into a collaborative experience of the environment.” 1 This quote always rings true to me. I like my canvas to have ‘lived’ the experience also. 1 John Wolseley Land Marks III

How does where you grew up, or where you live now affect your art?

For my entire life, I have tightly embraced the bends of the river. I grew up near the banks of the Darling River, in Broken Hill, and now years later, find myself beside the nurturing force of the Murray River. Growing up in Western NSW gave me a love for the vast horizons of the outback that I frequently go back to paint. Now, living in regional NSW, I have access to some of the most beautiful landscapes right on my doorstep. Surrounded by mountains, rivers and native bush provides endless inspiration.

Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?

 Although I have a studio at my home I also spend a lot of time painting outdoors. This ‘en plein air’ painting and drawing has become an important part of my practice in which I like to slow things down, to observe and search for the minutest parts of beauty in my environment.  This immersion into the landscape creates a sense of discovery.  

My latest body of work was painted along the Murray River. For months this was my studio, and to hear the river flowing by, the cockatoos calling in the treetops, and to be part of the landscape is an empowering journey.  We live in intricate tapestries of landscape so I would like my paintings to enrich and highlight the passages of time and place, and in this way kindle a relationship with the artist and the audience.

As an experimental visual artist, I like to play with the movement of the river, the movement of the paint on the canvas and let both flow downstream. Just as a river has contours, erosion, submerged tree roots, overhanging cliffs, mounds and troughs, I find these forms in my art. By tracing the flow lines along the river, my painting becomes its own ecosystem, its own geographic environment.

What’s next for you after your time at Brunswick Street Gallery? What upcoming projects are you working on now?

I hope to be spending a lot of time travelling and painting in the outback once Covid restrictions have been lifted.  The textures and colours of the Australian landscape are the catalyst for my artwork and as I have been working around my local landscapes and rivers for the past couple of years I think it is time to reconnect with the beauty of the Australian outback. 

Landmarks by Kim Passalaqua is current until 7 July 2020.

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ARTIST PROFILE: TAYLOR PARHAM

Taylor Parham notices the little things. Perfectly capturing the atmosphere of empty urban spaces growing quieter as the end of shifts roll around, Parham's photos invite the audience to consider more closely the world around us and what happens in those unappreciated moments while we sleep.

What medium(s) do you work with, and why have you chosen them? 

I work with photography, mostly digital but transitioning into some more film of late. I’ve had an interest in photography since high school as my father has been a photographer in some capacity all his life. As someone who feels creative but is unable to put that creativity into a painting or a sculpture or whatever, I found photography and using a camera to be the ideal medium.

Can you elaborate a little more on your making process — how does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?

My initial concept is a simple one, photographing a familiar location at an unfamiliar time, and as such my process of making is equally as simple. Throughout the day I’ll often stumble across a building or a location in my travels which might have potential, I’ll make a note, scout around a little and make time to revisit it outside of ‘normal’ hours. From there it’s just a matter of taking the time to photograph and get things right on location. I don’t want to spend a lot of time processing the photos; I want to document the building as is so the less I need to do in post the better. The part of the process I find most enjoyable is working slowly and methodically on location to get the shot, not sitting at the computer adjusting sliders.

Who or what are the biggest influences to your work?

My influences vary quite a bit, it’s far from photographers who influence and inspire my own work. The paintings of Jeffrey Smart are one of my biggest influences. Photographers like Mark Kimber who I’m lucky enough to be a student of have influenced this body of work in particular. Plenty of films and cinematographers, too many to list, but the composition, perspective, lighting, all that achieves the creative visuals and feel influence my process. But beyond who my influences are the urban environment itself will always be my biggest influence, I’m encouraged any time I find a new location and immediately excited about the possibility of photographing it.

How does where you grew up, or where you live now affect your art? 

I document ordinary locations in and around Adelaide and so where I live affects my art directly. Adelaide has always been my home and so there will permanently be a connection attached to the city and suburbs. I observe firsthand the change in the city, from new apartment blocks and connecting highways to smaller more temporary changes like a billboard left free of adverts or lights left on overnight at a basketball court, the city provides me all I could want or need to photograph, I just need to find it.

What’s next for you after your time at Brunswick Street Gallery? What upcoming projects are you working on now? 

I return to University to do begin a Masters in Contemporary Art. While I continue to work on documenting the city at night I’m looking forward to pursuing a few new ideas for future bodies of work. I am also very excited to undertake a Helpmann Academy Mentorship with a very talented photographer Alex Frayne throughout the first half of the year, which will afford me the opportunity to learn from someone I admire and provide another avenue to create work that might be out of my comfort zone.

am/pm by Taylor Parham is current until the 5 March 2019.