Memory and Dreamscape...

2007-08-06T16:23:00.000+10:00

For my first, and much anticipated blog, I decided to include an article of my own written in 2004 and subsequently published in French in the cultural journal Correspondances Oceaniennes. The article talks about evocative and story-telling works of a prominent Australian artist Tracey Moffatt.

It was the 2004 summer exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney that sparked my interest in Tracey Moffatt's work. Having walked through museum galleries on many occassions, I then somehow ended up looking for answers. That same summer, at the public lecture held at the museum, I could not help but ask Tracey Moffatt herself: "How do you sleep at night? Your characters are never set free."

For those of you not familiar with Tracey Moffatt's work, I urge you to have a look and if possible take time to absorb the narrative of her work at the RoslynOxley9 Gallery website:

http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/26/Tracey_Moffatt/75/

About the artist:

With over two decades of professional practice, Tracey Moffatt today is one of Australia’s best known artists. As a photographer, Moffatt came to prominence with the 1989 photo series Something More. That same year she produced a highly acclaimed short film Night Cries: Rural Tragedy, and in 1993 her first feature film, beDevil. Both were selected for official screening at the Cannes Film Festival, thus assuring her of national and international recognition as a filmmaker. In 1998 her work was showcased at the prestigious DIA Centre for the Arts in New York. Ever since, the artist has exhibited widely with over one hundred solo exhibition worldwide. The exhibition held at the MCA in Sydney in summer 2004 was one of the most comprehensive surveys of her work to date.

Memory and Dreamscape

Taking photography and film as catalysts for her ideas, Moffatt tells stories, drawing inspiration from, amongst many, literature and the neo-realist cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, Old Master as well as Australian landscape paintings. Her oeuvre also relates to her childhood memories, experiences and stories she has heard over the years. To that extent her work is autobiographical. Her stories are nuanced with issues of class, race, and gender but they do not necessarily evolve only around them. There indeed is something more to Moffat’s work.

Wandering through the galleries of the MCA, having abandoned our own reality for a moment, we find an imagery which is evocative, its narrative ambiguous and open-ended. Moffatt’s ‘reality’ truly engages the viewer, emotionally at first, but then also invites conversation, critical reflection or even disagreement. As we move from one gallery into the other we carry with us impressions that hold.

In the two part photo-series Scarred for Life (1994/1999), comprising of nineteen off-set prints, we witness the moments when a seemingly harmless comment or an embarrassing situation in one’s childhood causes lasting pain. Each image is based on ‘true stories’ Moffatt has heard over the years from friends. To us, Moffatt’s compositions almost seem like snapshots from photo-albums – each has an accompanying text alluding to a character’s innermost thoughts at that moment. The appearance of these characters is so vivid, really, we can almost here them sigh. One photograph, for example, shows a teenage boy, leaning against the wall outside his home. He is wearing a white collared shirt, his tie loosened up, gently waving in the wind. He is staring into the distance and his face is filled with despair. The caption reads: “After three weeks he still couldn’t find a job. His mother said to him, ‘maybe you’re not good enough”.

As we move on through the galleries, we come across twenty-six small canvases of the photo sequence titled Fourth (2000). Taken from the images of the Sydney Olympic Games, this series focuses on those athletes who came fourth, having just missed out on the medal. Moffatt captures them at the moment when their faces express anguish and disappointment.

What resonates through these works is their portrayal of very close and personal experiences that really transcend boundaries of nationality, socio-economic background or age. All these individuals are captured in moments when they appear at their most vulnerable, in that split-second when their self-confidence is shattered, their self-doubt mounting. We cannot help but to sympathize with them and think that maybe, a little bit of a similar experience lives in us, too. Both series of works may be interpreted as studies into the socio-historic forces impinging on the human condition, impacting on individuals either in their formative years or later in life.

Moving easily within the realm of visual production, Tracey Moffatt manages to bring photography and film close to each other. Her photo-series often evoke a fast-paced movement of images, giving it a subtle cinematic quality; on the other hand her films sometimes appear to come to a momentary standstill. In effect, while Moffatt’s photography moves the audience to seek their own interpretation in-between the frames, her film provides a moment for still reflection of the events unfolding within. What is more, the realization of Moffatt’s filmic and photographic work often remains confined to a studio. This is important to note because, practically, this gives the artist greater control over its production, consequently however, it makes it virtually impossible for Moffatt’s characters to find physical escape from a given scenery. Haunted by claustrophobic feelings Moffatt’s protagonists are thus destined to seek escape in their dreams.

In the nine-part photo series Something More, the central character, a woman in a red silk dress portrayed by Moffatt herself, dreams of leaving her provincial conditions and finding refuge in a city. Her desire is very strong - we witness the events hurriedly unfold: other characters are reluctant to let her go, she chooses to pack quickly but violence evolves and, rapt in a moment of sadness, we lastly find her lying motionless on a road.

Set in a desolate outback, a filmic imagery of Night Cries: Rural Tragedy tells of a mother-daughter relationship. A middle-aged daughter is caring for her dying foster mother. Tied to family responsibilities, unable to leave, the woman escapes in her daydreams by reading magazines on beach resorts. By means of a metaphor, here Moffatt creates a truly mesmerizing portrayal of an Australian landscape inspired by the watercolor paintings of Albert Namatjira. This sensual setting only further enunciates the desire of our character to find escape in the “landscape of imagination.” When the film comes to a discernible standstill, we too, for a moment seem to be fully embraced by this dreamscape. Memories of the woman’s childhood also bring to mind pain and moments of vulnerability, evoking feelings of resentment towards her mother. But when the mother dies, the dreamscape dissolves and the pain becomes strong and real.

Wandering through the galleries, we are thus embraced and immersed into many of Moffatt’s dreamscapes. It is a journey bringing us to characters, many of whom we deeply feel for. An ‘escape’ back into our own reality is always ‘safe’, we never have to experience the consequences the artist’s protagonists must endure. Although Tracey Moffatt says that, for her, making art is therapeutic and liberating, we know that some of her characters will never be set free.

NB. Bibliography available on request.

Work in progress....

2007-07-24T16:01:00.000+10:00

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."

Aldous Huxley

Himmeldunst

Memory and Dreamscape...

Work in progress....