MAUD GALLERY: TRANSLUCENCE: Jacqui Dean’s Xrayograms

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TRANSLUCENCE: Jacqui Dean’s Xrayograms

Maud Creative Gallery June 18th – July 19th, 2014

6 Maud Street Newstead, QLD 4006
Ph 07 32161727
www.maud-creative.com

Jacqui Dean + Robert MacFarlane Photo: Doug Spowart

A comment about the work by the exhibition speaker Robert McFalane

In TRANSLUCENCE, photographic artist Jacqui Dean reveals Australia’s flora, both native and introduced – in radically new ways. Dean’s searching vision reduces flowers to their essential, sculptural shapes, translating them into exquisite, archival black and white prints. Calla lilies are seen as never before – with their curved flowers resembling the shape and texture of a crystal goblet. Dean’s delicate images of roses, through composition and digital magic, reveal interlaced petals that mimic the textures of a Tulle bridal veil.

Dean’s delicate, dancing images in TRANSLUCENCE mirror the elegance of Nature while resonating deeply with the work of artists as disparate as photographic pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) and the affectionate, intricate drawings of Nature by Albrecht Durer. (1471-1528)

Jacqui Dean is a talented Sydney architectural, corporate and fine-art photographer known for her rigourous sense of composition and peerless black and white printmaking skills. Twenty seven prints will be on display at Maud Creative Gallery during this first Brisbane exhibition of TRANSLUCENCE.

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 – 1955)

‘Another Universe’ a review by Victoria Cooper

From the late 19^th, and into the early 20th century there was a growing movement in the sciences and the arts that associated with Nature’s inherent resonance of form and structure from the microscopic to the cosmic. These new vistas and universes were recorded not only by the scientists’ hand but also by new developments in technology, notably the invention of the photographic process. Visual communication through imaging technologies continues to be an important tool in scientific research. But these images were not just useful as scientific evidence they were and continue to be inspiration for the creative work of artists and designers.

One noted exemplar utilising this visual medium was Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932), a sculptor, metal craftsman and teacher. Blossfeldt began taking photographs of botanical specimens to use in his classes as ideas for students to create design forms from nature. But Blossfeldt’s work became very influential in the art, craft and design movement that popularised natural forms as templates for architecture, sculpture and 3D design work. His photographic documentation revealed abstract views of humble everyday roadside plants as visually interesting structural and aesthetic forms. As a result, Blossfeldt’s photographs also became renowned as works of fine art.

Jacqui Dean’s exhibition Translucence, at 2 Danks Street Gallery, Sydney, and now at Maud Gallery in Brisbane, is the result of artistic curiosity and visual investigation natural forms through the phenomenon of Xrays. Art in this respect is the revelation of the unseen, the beholding of the essence within ordinary objects or a transforming perception of the everyday experience. The photograph, or in this case ‘xrayograph’, seals the object within the frame safe from the changes and inevitable decay over time. At first glance these images could appeal to the naturalist or perhaps a student of design (after Blossfeldt). Yet a deeper – more poetic vision immanent in nature is also suggested through a more contemplative viewing of these images.

Some may argue that this is an uncomfortable clash between the modernist and the romantic, or the objectivity of scientific evidence and the subjective imagination. But could this work identify with a need to embrace a sense of wonder rarely seen within a super-hyped, virtual digital-image society? Dean’s work in Translucence is informed by the poetry of music and her life’s experiences and her prodigious professional practice in photography. However the rewards for the thoughtful viewer will be to share in her wonder of the natural world that surrounds and nourishes our everyday life.

Victoria Cooper . . . June 9, 2013.