Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope
counter-sites | Isabella Capezio, Aaron
Claringbold & Rebecca McCauley, Matt Dunne, Nicholas
Mahady, Christine McFetridge, Jahkarli
Felicitas Romanis
Photo Access I 7 March – 5 April 2025
Whilst visiting this
exhibition I learned that the gallery staff had received some unusual feedback
about it. As I left after exploring the exhibits, I commented that I would need
to spend considerable time thinking about what I had viewed. Again I learned
that I was not the first visitor to make such an observation.
I am writing this days
later after doing much thinking. My “thought notes” remind me I saw various
things and media that I have rarely, if ever, previously seen in any
exhibition. Those things include a sign warning about the use of 1080 baits, re-felted found car glove compartments, two car seat headrest TVs, and a significant number of pieces based on reproduced text pages from a historical
report. I also saw various things I’ve seen used in other exhibitions –
such as a carousel slide projector, an overhead projector, speakers. And, of
course, inkjet and C-type prints, digital prints on polyester film, light
boxes, and laser prints. There also are Mackenzie Lee’s poetic text prints on
acetate (‘These words bleed by the bite of loving teeth’ (2025)) scattered
throughout the exhibition spaces on floors and walls. Plus some basalt rocks in
assorted sizes. All in all it is a complex and intriguing show. Curators Karl
Halliday and Madeleine Sherburn would have had an interesting task, determining
which pieces to position where in the three gallery spaces – plus some pieces
outside the building.
So, what is it all about? It
showcases the work of seven artists whose lens-based practices are said to “dismantle,
dissect, and destabilise the complex relationship between photography and
place.” The biographies and statement sheets reveal “Looking inwards to the
properties of the medium itself, and outwards to the politics of vision, the
exhibition extends and confuses the traditional-spatial experience of image
through critical, archival, and expanded approaches to photography.” And “This
entanglement with place, especially in Australia where the camera performs a
complicit service in the colonial project, is problematic.” Those, and various
other words, stimulate even more thinking. Some might suggest the combined
complexity of the exhibits and accompanying text is too much for the casual
gallery visitor. Others would take great delight in the diversity of what they
see and read.
Working collaboratively as
artists, Aaron Claringbold and Rebecca McCauley, try to use photography as a
tool for thinking and feeling a way through “the mess of now.” They make works
about how we inhabit this place; about what we bring and what we take – and the
many discrepancies and spaces between.
 |
| Aaron Claringbold and Rebecca McCauley – ‘Here’s What we Know’ (2023) displaying on two car seat headrest TVs on fabricated aluminium stands at the artists eye heights. |
Christine McFetridge uses
photography, video and text, aiming to contest and unsettle colonial histories
through an engagement with public archives – here from the National Library of
Australia and State Library Victoria.
 |
| Christine McFetridge – ‘Evidence lll (2024)’, archival material sourced from the National Library of Australia and State library Victoria, 29.7x42cm, laser prints, and ‘Basalt Study (Red)’ 2024, 32×40 cm, framed archival inkjet print. |
Isabella Capezio’s artwork
and research spiral around themes of failure, queerness and landscape. After
recently completing a PhD experimenting with alternative ways to reflect on
place, vision, nature and colonial power frameworks through landscape
photography, they are now in the slightly existential space of figuring out
what’s next.
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| Isabella Capezio – Upsidedown Country (2025) left, and Welcome Stranger (2025) – both unique 142 x 112 cm, c-type prints, edition 1 of 1 |
The arts practice of Jahkarli
Felicitas Romanis is inextricably intertwined with her identity as a proud
Aboriginal woman of Pitta Pitta descent. She aims to subvert and disrupt
colonial approaches to image making and photography.
 |
| Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis – ‘Pitta Pitta (Published Without Permission)’ 2022, digital print on polyester film, aluminium light box, 280×280 mm, ed.1 |
Matt Dunne’s work explores
Australia’s environment as a product of colonial legacy. Using photography and
research as a basis, he develops publications, installations and education
programs seeking to deepen the connection of wide-ranging and diverse audiences
to the world around them.
 |
| Matt Dunne – ‘Cat taken from the wild’ (2023), inkjet on dibond, 20x25cm, ed. 1 |
Nicholas Mahady’s practice considers
how to represent the unrepresentable, like atmospheres and energies, in the
most realistic of mediums: photography. He uses poetry and language as a
foundation to produce new bodies of work – treating language as a form of
sculptural device, considering how one places and pairs works.
 |
| Nicholas Mahady – Left to Right: Flocked car glove compartments, size variable; ‘Glove compartment 01’ (2024-26), 62.2×78.2cm (framed), pigment print on baryta, ed. 1 of 3; ‘Suction fan’ (2024-25), 62.2×78.2 cm (framed), pigment print on baryta, ed. 1 of 3. |
All installation view photographs
illustrating this review were supplied by Photo Access.
This review is also available on the author’s own blog here.
