From Sharne Wolff…
It seems Tracey Moffatt has been keeping herself busy. Spirit Landscapes is a collection of five new series of photographs from this celebrated artist displayed with a recent video. Each explores ideas of spirituality and memory through a broad interpretation of landscape. Moffatt is renowned for her work in moving image and her new video entitled In and Out is a short low-tech piece that considers the exchange between sex workers and those making use of brothels in mining towns. Drawing on her vast experience in film, Pioneer Dreaming is a series of stills from 1950s Westerns that expose the Hollywood version of the colonial experience.
The success of Moffatt’s photography often lies in the strength of the image to suggest further narrative. Cherbourg is an Aboriginal mission north west of Brisbane where members of Moffatt’s family were sent in the 1920s during a time of enforced segregation. Picturesque Cherbourg tellingly documents the town in a series of broken images. In Suburban Landscapes Moffatt revisits her own youth with a collection of black and white photographs superimposed with memories in bright hand-coloured hues while As I Lay Back on My Ancestral Land presents cloudscapes in psychedelic colours. Night Spirits is a series of frames that capture either something or nothing – it’s all up to you, the viewer.
Until October 12
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Paddington
Pic: Tracey Moffatt?, Suburban No. 5. ‘Stole a Mars Bar’, 2013. ?From the series ‘Spirit Landscapes’ ?digital print hand coloured in water crayon, ?81 × 99cm?. Edition of 8. Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
