Star Drawings
30 January - 16 February 2008

CV

Robert Nelson Sublime infinity beyond the ceiling
The Age February 2008

Media release  

‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them; the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me… I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.’(1)
Kant, 1788

Fresh from the acclaimed ‘Cross Currents’ at the MCA (curated by the late John Stringer) David Stephenson returns to John Buckley Gallery in February with his latest works from the ‘Star Drawings’ series. Washington-born, Stephenson currently lives and works in Tasmania. Internationally regarded and well known for his images of the frozen plains of Antarctica and his series documenting the heavenly domes and vaults of chapels, synagogues and mosques of the UK and Europe Stephenson’s photographic practice sees him travelling extensively in pursuit of capturing the sublime.

In Star Drawings, Stephenson extends his investigation of the sacred and sublime by once again casting his lens upwards to the heavens, this time to the night sky. Stephenson travelled into the heart of the Central Australian desert meticulously recording his geographical bearings as the anchorage point for each image using multiple and long exposures to record stars as they journeyed over the vast desert.

Much like his documentation of the heavenly temples, Stephenson immerses himself in the sacred space of the celestial twilight, using technology to reveal what would otherwise be overlooked by the naked eye. The resulting photographs are dense and delicate collections of scattered lines which hail back to Stephenson’s earlier architectural imagery sharing the same visual devices of pattern, repetition and geometric abstraction. In Star Drawings, Stephenson suggests a deeper exploration of nature and transient phenomena as many of the stars have died by the time their light reaches us. Furthermore, we cannot ignore the cultural mysticism associated with stars as astrological sooth sayers and divine constellations; as in the words of 16 century Danish Astrologer Tycho Brahe ‘by looking up I see downwards’(2). Stephenson’s quiet, contemplative Star Drawings proffer the viewer a transcendental experience via the temporal structure of the photographic medium.

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