TRENT PARKE
PLEASE STEP QUIETLY EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU
October 28 - November 28, 2009 at Stills Gallery
This year Magnum photographer Trent Parke, one of Australia's best-known and most original photographers, was commissioned by Sydney Opera House, as an artist in residence, to shoot behind the scenes. With his characteristic originality and imagination Parke takes us with him backstage. Working amidst the darkness, with strictly choreographed logistics, bizarre props and long hours, he captures, with frankness and affection a side of Sydney Opera House few of us have ever seen. The images that have resulted from this exciting collaboration will be on show in complementary exhibitions at Sydney Opera House and at Stills Gallery.
Whilst it is an architectural masterpiece and Australian icon, it is easy to forget that for some, Sydney Opera House is also a workplace. Behind the architectural statement, the grand operas and the thousands of tourists, there are electricians setting up lights, stage-hands moving props, opera singers eating lunch in the greenroom and people waiting to let the final curtain fall.
Parke's eye is drawn to the many details that may, ordinarily, be overlooked. The electric blues and oranges, kilometres of cabling, lines of tape and graphic arrows present a beautiful, if baffling (for the uninitiated) picture. We see wigs without actors, blood-stained props from tragedies, walls grafittied over years of waiting and the intestinal ducts of air conditioning. His wonderfully observant images capture layers of life and time that have accumulated over the years.
All those who visit Sydney Opera House will be able to view the free outdoor exhibition on the Forecourt from 22 October until February 2010. It will be a great opportunity for visitors to see both the inside and the outside of the house at the same time.
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Trent Parke, the first Australian to become a Full Member of the renowned photographers' cooperative Magnum Photo Agency, is considered one of the most innovative and challenging young photographers of his generation. Whilst working as a press photojournalist during the first years of his career, he received numerous national and international awards, including five Gold Lenses from the International Olympic Committee, World Press Photo Awards in 1999, 2000 and in 2005.
His latest and much-anticipated body of work - The Christmas Tree Bucket, is humour of the blackest hue. In a dazzling display of virtuoso storytelling Parke snaps the family ritual of Christmas with the in-laws and builds a gritty gothic tale of a nightmare lurking in the suburban shadows. Operatic in its vision and darkly satirical in its style, The Bucket is a photographic masterpiece destined for cult status. In 2008, The Christmas Tree Bucket was launched at The Australian Centre for Photography and was also premiered at ParisPhoto by Stills Gallery.
Welcome to Nowhere, which was included in Magnum's 60th Anniversary show New Blood, and exhibited at Stills Gallery in 2007, firmly establishes his ability to work with spectacular results in colour as well as his signature powerful black and white. Following the series Coming Soon, an exploration of urban spaces in colour, Welcome to Nowhere focuses on Australian backwaters, shot on medium format film to maintain fine detail even when printed large-scale. With Welcome To Nowhere Parke continues to create arresting tableaus that are magical in the stories they tell. Often absent of human presence the strong colours and formal composition, convey a stillness with surreal affect. Conversely, the humorous Man Vomiting testifies to Parke's ability to capture unforeseen moments of human behaviour, or in the case of the iconic Sharkbay WA, it is a bizarre gang of emus who seem to think they own the town.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, acquired a selection of works from Welcome To Nowhere in 2007. This is a wonderful addition to the institutions he is held in, which include the National Gallery of Victoria, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Art Gallery of NSW, and the National Gallery of Australia.
In 2003 Parke was awarded the prestigious international W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his series Minutes to Midnight. Parke documented his journey around Australia over a two-year period, examining 'the current and changing state of the Australian nation'. Capturing the mood of a still young and emerging nation, Parke examined the disjuncture between the perception of the Australian 'way of life', with its nostalgia and romanticism, and the more complex reality. Minutes to Midnight was exhibited for the first time at the Australian Centre for Photography as part of the Sydney Arts Festival in 2005. Works from the series were also included in the 2005 Noorderlicht Traces and Omens Photo Festival in the Netherlands and were featured by Magnum at Paris Photo in November 2005. In 2006 The National Gallery acquired Parke's thirty-piece suite of Minutes to Midnight. The suite was included in the Australian Art Gallery's exhibition Shoot: Five Australian Photographers in Focus and more recently (2009), was part of the Children's Gallery at the NGA.
Parke's Dream/Life & Beyond, exhibited in 2001 at Stills Gallery, presented a city seemingly peopled with spirits and shrouded in the mythical. The play of light and shade, individuals and crowds, reality and dream, elevates his works beyond the documentary. His book, Dream/Life, was awarded second place in the 2000 American Picture of the Year awards for photography books.
During 2000, Parke collaborated with Narelle Autio to exhibit The Seventh Wave at Stills Gallery. Their powerful and lyrical images of bathers captured the drama and otherworldliness that lies beneath the surface of the water.
The Seventh Wave and Dream/Life were exhibited in 2004 at Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery in New York, and at Foto Freo in Western Australia. In 2003, works from The Seventh Wave were selected to be part of the Summer Life exhibition at Alice Austin House Museum in Long Island, New York.
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STILLS is a leading Australian gallery with a focus on contemporary photography and multimedia art. The gallery, established in 1991, is housed in a converted warehouse with a large exhibition and printroom space in Paddington, Sydney's main gallery precinct. STILLS represents both emerging and established artists, and has a long history of fostering artists who work at the forefront of contemporary photo media practice. The gallery's annual program consists of nine exhibitions, and an extensive collection of works held in the stockroom can be viewed by appointment. STILLS also organises artist talks throughout the year to promote discussion and understanding of the exhibited work.
36 Gosbell Street, Paddington, Australia
http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/
