Crystallized fallen pine, saltworks boundary
Wayne Barrar, Artist; Photographer;
See full detailsObject Detail
About the Work
This
dusky
pink,
slight
sci-fi
Wayne
Barrar
image
seems
to
depict
a
cloudy
blush
potion,
with
a
trapped
tree
dipping
its
branches
and
cones
into
clutching
crystals.
This
image
was
chosen
because
of
its
tantalising
associations
with
food,
with
swimming,
and
with
discovering
something
new
and
perhaps
a
little
unsettling.
It's
also
a
beautiful
image
in
itself,
and
when
taken
in
tandem
with
its
suite-mates
in
'Saltworks:
The
Processed
Landscape',
it
presents
an
intriguing
glimpse
into
a
very
commodified
landscape,
and
the
mass
production
of
something
as
everyday
as
table
salt.
Riah King-Wall, a freelance cultural sector professional and postgraduate student, for the April 2020 instalment of the My Choice exhibition series.
Riah King-Wall, a freelance cultural sector professional and postgraduate student, for the April 2020 instalment of the My Choice exhibition series.
Measurements
Image: H270 x W355mm
Base: H310 x W405mm *(photographic paper and black border)
Base: H310 x W405mm *(photographic paper and black border)
Media
Cibachrome print
Description
Part of a collection of works from the series "Saltworks: The processed landscape" which was exhibited and toured in 1989. These images were taken at the Lake Grassmere Saltworks, which is situated 34km south east of Blenheim. The artist has maintained a keen interest in landscapes altered by human intervention through industry and the commercialisation of the land.
In the catalogue from this exhibition Joanna Paul writes of his work in her essay' A Human Ecology': " In pursuit of intelligibility, Wayne Barrars very formal photographs attain great beauty, in their refusal to interpret or judge they aquire presence. Dispassion might be called cold. There is no personal narrative in his chronology of process, But to my mind the photogrpahs generally and those of the saltworks in particular have a brilliance and a life quickened by their singular embodiment of a vision of landscape...Salt itself is interestingly both natural and inorganic. Colour in the white landscape might be read as heraldic (Loading truck (harvest) 1988); stockpiled spare parts are as orderly in their field of flowers as the deserted battlefield of Robert Bression's 'Lancelot du lac'. A marginal reading might link the crystallization of salt with alchemical transformation, a residue of the narrative - not something teased out by the artist. The shift into colour from graphic teacherly black and white is no indulgance. Colour is a statement of the salt-making process. Blu registers winter and water depth. Red - salinity, summer, krill, evaporation. The photographs trace the two -year cycle of salt crystalization - camera assiduously patiently set up (to avoid constant winds) int he stillness of dawn or evening light. Painstaking preperation, stalking of subject, tiresome journeys transformed into soignée images. Cibachrome does not impart extra gloss but it a logical medium for the mirror-still surfaces of sea and sky, for colour itself quasi-"artificial". "
In the catalogue from this exhibition Joanna Paul writes of his work in her essay' A Human Ecology': " In pursuit of intelligibility, Wayne Barrars very formal photographs attain great beauty, in their refusal to interpret or judge they aquire presence. Dispassion might be called cold. There is no personal narrative in his chronology of process, But to my mind the photogrpahs generally and those of the saltworks in particular have a brilliance and a life quickened by their singular embodiment of a vision of landscape...Salt itself is interestingly both natural and inorganic. Colour in the white landscape might be read as heraldic (Loading truck (harvest) 1988); stockpiled spare parts are as orderly in their field of flowers as the deserted battlefield of Robert Bression's 'Lancelot du lac'. A marginal reading might link the crystallization of salt with alchemical transformation, a residue of the narrative - not something teased out by the artist. The shift into colour from graphic teacherly black and white is no indulgance. Colour is a statement of the salt-making process. Blu registers winter and water depth. Red - salinity, summer, krill, evaporation. The photographs trace the two -year cycle of salt crystalization - camera assiduously patiently set up (to avoid constant winds) int he stillness of dawn or evening light. Painstaking preperation, stalking of subject, tiresome journeys transformed into soignée images. Cibachrome does not impart extra gloss but it a logical medium for the mirror-still surfaces of sea and sky, for colour itself quasi-"artificial". "
Credit Line
Collection of the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui. Purchased, 1989.
Collection Type
Permanent collection
Acquisition Date
1989