Life aquatic - group exhibition

The exhibition features the work of three contemporary photographers – Narelle Autio, Ruth Maddison, and Catherine Nelson. Life aquatic will plunge the viewer into underwater landscapes where life forms are suspended, interconnected, and bubbling with quiet potential. In different ways, each artist asks us to sink below the horizon of our civilised lives.

© Narelle Autio. Red nails, 2006, from the series, New colour works. Pigment ink-jet print, 58 x 86cm.
© Narelle Autio. Red nails, 2006, from the series, New colour works. Pigment ink-jet print, 58 x 86cm.

Scientists like to say that Earth was misnamed. Given that over 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, it would be more accurate to say that we live on planer Water. Life aquatic will plunge the viewer into underwater landscapes where life forms are suspended, interconnected and bubbling with quiet potential. In different ways, each artist asks us to sink below the horizon of our civilised lives to immerse ourselves in planet Water.

© Narelle Autio
© Narelle Autio

About the artists

Narelle Autio is a photojournalist and avid traveller, who works in documentary mode. A regular exhibitor of new work, Autio takes her photos in public spaces where she can capture the drama and spontaneity of everyday life. Working above and below the waterline, she covers subjects such as children jesting in the waves; isolated coastlines dotted with seaweed and the flotsam that holidaymakers leave in the sand. Life aquatic showcases Autio’s underwater photography, which is one of the most sustained and erudite aspects of her practice. Through the four series featured in the exhibition, Autio expresses the athletic action of crowded surf beaches as well as the solitude of inland swimming holes. She documents the spontaneity of live action like a street photographer, but she also transforms plunging bodies into sublime figures that float in an aquatic abyss.

© Narelle Autio. Yellow haired girl, 2006, from the series, New colour works. Chromogenic print, 58 x 86cm. Courtesy of the artist, Stills Gallery (Sydney) and Hugo Michell Gallery (Adelaide).
© Narelle Autio. Yellow haired girl, 2006, from the series, New colour works. Chromogenic print, 58 x 86cm. Courtesy of the artist, Stills Gallery (Sydney) and Hugo Michell Gallery (Adelaide).

Ruth Maddison, a self-taught photographer and artist, brings her series of camera-less ‘chemograms’ to Life aquatic, which she produced using seaweed between 2000 and 2006. Arranging plant forms on sheets of photographic paper, Maddison exposed her organic compositions to sunlight to create these works. She further enhanced the shadowy images by allowing random reactions between the salty seaweed and photographic materials. Maddison prefers not to specify a viewing orientation for her works, fostering the notion these forms belong to a fluid realm.

© Ruth Maddison. Girt by sea #17, 2005. Gelatin silver print, 61 x 110cm.
© Ruth Maddison. Girt by sea #17, 2005. Gelatin silver print, 61 x 110cm.

Catherine Nelson has developed a seductively hyper-real form of photography. She ‘paints’ fantastical landscapes by digitally combining and distorting photographs taken in her actual environment. Nelson’s most recent series of images have adopted a submarine perspective on aquatic landscapes. Origins was created using photographs of mangrove swamps in south-east Asia, while Submerged was composed from thousands of close-up photographs taken in a small lily pond in Belgium. Life aquatic also features Nelson’s new video work ‘Supernova,’ an animated sequence of rare and endangered plants from the National Botanic Garden of Belgium.

© Catherine Nelson. Submerged no. 01, 2015. Pigment ink-jet print, 75 x 150cm. Courtesy of the artist, Gallerysmith (Melbourne) and Michael Reid (Sydney).
© Catherine Nelson. Submerged no. 01, 2015. Pigment ink-jet print, 75 x 150cm. Courtesy of the artist, Gallerysmith (Melbourne) and Michael Reid (Sydney).

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November

Sydney: The exhibition delves into the State Library of NSW's vast collection of two million images, showcasing 400 photos – many displayed for the first time.

February

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Melbourne: Jill Orr’s The Promised Land Refigured is an exhibition that reworks the original project created in 2012 with new insights that have emerged in the past eleven years.

Sydney: Curated by Lynn Smith, Urban Enigmas aims to unlock the subtle mysteries that lurk in out-of-the-way places in big cities: back lanes, river banks, street markets, abandoned factories, old bridges and so on.

March

Ballarat: Nan Goldin is an American artist whose work explores subcultures, moments of intimacy, the impacts of the HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics on her communities, and photography as a tool for social activism.

Sydney: The Ocean Photographer of the Year Award, run by London based Oceanographic Magazine is in its 4th year and has quickly achieved recognition amongst photographers around the world.

Albury: The National Photography Prize offers a $30,000 acquisitive prize, the $5000 John and Margaret Baker Fellowship for an emerging practitioner, and further supports a number of artists through focused acquisitions.