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Internationally regarded, Washington-born, Tasmania-based photographer, David Stephenson will be exhibiting a selection of his photographic works at John Buckley Gallery from May 2nd to May 19th 2007. Stephenson is well known for his series of domes, stars and landscapes. One of his greatest achievements with photography lies in his attentiveness to the registry of time within the spatial organization of the pictorial. His Dome series is just as much a typological patterning of an archaeological (and historical) archive as it is a geometrical expression of spiritual aspiration, employing a working methodology reminiscent of Bernd and Hiller Bechers’ work as well as that of Thomas Struth and Candida Hoffer of the new German school of photography. Similarly, by capturing the heavenly constellations using long exposures in his Star series, Stephenson’s configurations also index the temporal moment between the opening and closing of the shutter as a duration, not just a snapshot. This brings to mind nights spent staring at the cloudless sky; a time for dreaming, wishing and hoping. |
In the Antartica series, Stephenson upped the ante by working against the logic of time. By turning his attention to the north as an abstract pure slate that is beyond time, Stephenson’s evocative series ironically suggests the possibility of transcendental experience via the temporal structure of the photographic medium. This small survey is characterised by many years of deliberate and patient observation of both the natural and man-made world and its attendant metaphysics that have inspired so much art and literature. Stephenson’s quiet abstraction shares a spiritual sensibility with his forbears and invites us to look once more at what has inspired them and how they may continue to do so. David Stephenson’s work has been included in a number of notable collections, chiefly the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (New York), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), as well as both private and corporate collections. |
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