In her latest solo exhibition, photographer Robyn Stacey uses the ancient technology of the camera obscura (Latin for ‘dark room’) to create surreal, topsy-turvy images in which gardens seem to dangle from bedroom ceilings and clouds appear to race across carpets.
“It is this in-between space that I find so fascinating: you are in the world but removed from it at the same time. You can see everything that is happening outside the window, but it’s like being in your own private movie.”
Stacey’s multilayered, colour-saturated images are created without digital manipulation. They capture what she calls a “temporary liminal space, a visual mash-up of ‘out’ and ‘in’ side”. This haunting collision of exterior and interior is fleeting, since each camera obscura is dependent on the angle of the sun and only lasts for a few hours.
Stacey first began using a camera obscura to record the transitional space of hotel rooms. Then in her Cloud Land series, some of which will be on show at Stills, she concentrated on the city of Brisbane. In her most recent photographs, she focuses on spaces inhabited by artists.
Stacey explains the allure of these interiors, saying, “We seek to be moved by the artist’s space, as if by walking through the studio we will suddenly be struck with inspiration. Or perhaps by gazing at the space we will start to make sense of the artist’s persona. The myth of the artist becomes absorbed into the fabric of the building, making them very potent spaces.”
Robyn Stacey
Stills Gallery
6 October – 5 November
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
Symbols and images dance across Nathan Beard’s vast body of work, all connecting back to his Thai-Australian heritage. We step inside the artist’s studio space in Preston, Victoria, and discuss his upcoming exhibition at Sweet Pea Gallery.
Heide Museum of Modern Art’s summer blockbuster exhibition is unveiling the breadth and beauty of Italian modernism through design. With over 170 objects spanning sixty years, Molto Bello explores the cultural impact of this period of creativity and invention.
Julie Mehretu’s first solo exhibition in the southern hemisphere, now showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, attempts to harness the urgency and energy of the Ethiopian-born New Yorker’s multilayered painting practice.
