First Impressions - David Bruce
HUW DAVIES GALLERY 23 April–10 May
DavidBruceCatWeb.pdf
Artist talk Sunday 10 May at 2pm
David Bruce is relatively new to Canberra, which makes First Impressions, his first solo exhibition, unusual.
Unless they have been residents for many years, people making photographs in Canberra usually find the national capital icons irresistible. We see image after image of Parliament House, the two bridges and the lakeside institutions, Anzac Parade and its grand monuments all leading to the Australian War Memorial—possibly the most photographed building in Australia after the Sydney Opera House.
But David Bruce has gone beyond the grandeur and immediate visual pull of the Parliamentary Triangle to share with us a meditative and somewhat tranquil view of the city he now calls home.
He says of his work in First Impressions:
The idea of these images … is … not to document Canberra in any way, but rather to give impressions of it. This includes the colours and forms of both the natural and the manmade environment and, of course, some of the iconic buildings that are central to the very existence of Canberra.
These are little vignettes of Canberra, moments and places that are all small parts of the city and surrounding areas.
In the tradition of the Pictorialists, beginning in Nineteenth Century England and the United States and moving, inevitably later, to Australia through the work of Harold Cazneaux and some of his contemporaries, David Bruce is striving for something other than an objective visual record of the landscape. Even the national icons he has photographed are unrecognisable. This work, he says:
… reflects something of a new direction in my photography—away from a more literal documentary style of landscape photography towards a more impressionistic and artistic style.
PhotoAccess is pleased to provide this opportunity for David Bruce to introduce his work to Canberra in First Impressions, his first solo exhibition, in the HUW DAVIES GALLERY at the Manuka Arts Centre.
David Chalker
