The QCP’s fourth exhibition for 2009 includes a combination of emerging and established artists, from Queensland and interstate. Each artist considers the human condition, albeit from notably different viewpoints.

A psychological darkness lingers in Ben Ali Ong’s ongoing series Black sun (the art of dying). Monochromatic photographs of interiors and exteriors, of figures and the landscape, intrude into the dark corners of consciousness. Finding inspiration in the works of artists such as Bill Henson and Joel Peter Witkin, Sydney-based Ong’s photography is a jarring intrusion into the banality of daily life. Similarly his physical intervention into the photographic process, through defacing and sandwiching of negatives, heightens the drama of his imagery. Ong plays upon a nightmarish gothic vision of the conscious mind, mortality and the ultimate journey of life, that of dying. Ong finds inspiration in abandoned spaces of the city, in ancient mythology, in alchemy and in the uncertain terrain of the subconscious. Amid a daily lightness is the darkness of the soul, an exasperation of life that cannot be pegged down or categorised.

Terrain is an underlying common thread in Peter Wilson's series Chasing storms. Like Ong, local artist Wilson works in the tradition of black and white photography to investigate the human psyche. Storms, unpredictable and often quick to strike, are metaphors for the mind and emotion. While Ong intervenes in the darkroom to alter his images, Wilson carefully chooses his subjects and produces striking images that exploit silver gelatin's flexibility to amplify contrast and embrace grain. Seemingly simple landscapes carry an unmistakable heaviness, evoking a weight of daily life that for some of us is a dark shadow that pervades all activities. Wilson is not celebrating nor dismissing the black dog, rather he is embracing photography's ability to convey emotion through images of the everyday.

The optimism and uncertainty of the early stages of adult life underpin Terry Young’s series death at 27... His portraits depict a number of the artist’s friends and contemporaries, presented in a ‘front and profile’ approach that mimics police mug shots. But Young’s models do not pose with the characteristic blank stare of the mug shot. They perform, dress up, pull faces and use props. Young recently turned 26. There is a legacy of creative people dying in their prime, often linked to the recurring human fallibility of a sense of invincibility when ameliorated from the shackles of school and of 'home' life. Living the High Life often bites one in the arse: hopefully Young will foil his namesake and live to ripe old age, along with his protagonists.

The fractured French text scrawled over the photographs link back to the socio-political upheavals of Paris in 1968, a protest primarily riven by students. Generations of youths can find inspiration in the actions of those before them, regardless of international borders. Young's written additions evoke a time passed, yet simultaneously echo the communal sentimentality that erupts when a celebrity dies before their time - think Dean, Joplin, Hendrix, Cobain, Ledger.

Wilson and Young recently graduated from QCA, along with fellow artist Rebecca Smith. In contrast to her colleagues, Smith’s Aposelene is lighter in touch, a poetic and intimate series that illuminates the life of her younger sister who recently turned fifteen. Combining a series of portraits and landscapes, Smith paints a picture of her sibling during a key stage of life as she passes through adolescence. Smith simultaneously opens a window onto her self – the hometown life of her sister is a reflection of the artist’s own recent past. The distance between one place and another, between then and now, is both highlighted and compressed as the singular and private relationship between the sisters is a marker to universality between people.

Intimacy also underlines the work of Adelaide artist Deborah Pauuwe, but intimacy tinged with an aura of vulnerability and dislocation. Pauuwe almost exclusively works with women of various ages, from young girls to adults. A sensual/sexual ambiguity is often at play and the artist heightens the sensation through the deliberate yet simple technique of concealing her models’ faces through cropping or posing. In her recent series Carousel, Pauuwe opted for an unusual overhead point-of-view, with her model clearly carefully posed yet apparently unaware of the intrusion of the lens. The circular motif throughout the series, formed by the spread of long dresses as the figure poses kneeling or lying on the ground, conjures the form of doilies, or a dancer spinning with her outfit to fanning out in a perfect circle

But in Pauuwe’s work the circle isn’t perfect. Nor is the presentation of the model. Rather than being contained within her (im)perfect circle, the figure often has a foot or arm breaking the geometric ideal of form. When her hair is carefully platted into a refined hairstyle the part is askew, bringing into question the age of the model – is this a young woman or a child in adult clothes? In some images the dishevelled hair and awkward position of limbs introduce an aura of foul play and death, reinforced by the absolute stillness of pose.

By comparison, fellow Adelaide artist Mark Kimber’s series Edgeland is a series of industrial landscapes, devoid of people and photographed at night. These sites of human activities, of daily work that underpins virtually all of modern human behaviour. Stripped of their function, purpose and human occupants, the structures are embued with a sense of emptiness and abandonment similar to a ghost town. Kimber utilises a low–tech camera to exploit the effect of colour shifts and vignetting, further abstracting his images into a theatrical realm and away from traditional landscape photography. The camera isn’t simply a documentary tool but actively intervenes and interprets the view. Kimber not only acknowledges the controlling role of the camera in his work, but actively encourages the intrusive aspect of photography. This isn’t a window to the world, it is a carefully choreographed play in which we are all a part.

Gordon Craig
Practicing artist and the Exhibition Coordinator, UQ Art Museum