Adolescents - Angela Tarlinton
HUW DAVIES GALLERY 26 July–2 September 2007
Photographing children and young people is contentious. Although the images of nineteenth century photographers Julia Margaret Cameron and Lewis Carroll may not have been controversial in their time, judged by today’s community standards they would certainly have attracted controversy.
Bill Henson, Polixeni Papapetrou and Anne Ferran are among contemporary Australian photographers who have challenged notions of what is acceptable in the depiction of young subjects.
In ‘Teenage Riot: Representations of Adolescence in Contemporary Art’ (Artlink, vol. 21, no. 4), K P Hall wrote:
When contemplating images of childhood and particularly adolescence, we enter a complicated site of desire and longing, inextricably tied to the yearning for our own lost innocence—a kind of memorialising of the last steps on the path to adulthood. At the same time, our desire to protect children and preserve the wobbly sanctity of childhood ensures that there will always be a different kind of anxiety attached to looking at these images.
Germaine Greer threw down the gauntlet to wowsers with her surprising The Boy in 2003. Natasha Walter began her The Guardian review of 11 October 2003 with:
The first thing that strikes you about Germaine Greer's new book is just how lovely it is; page after page of sheeny illustrations of fine, languid boys as seen by artists from Praxiteles to Annie Leibovitz. But this is much more than a great coffee table book. In it, Greer is asking us to celebrate the evanescent loveliness of boys, but to do so in a very serious way.
Angela Tarlinton has heard Greer’s serious message. In Adolescents she has given us 18 beautiful black and white images of small town boys ‘… hovering between two worlds, with one foot in childhood they are drawn into the uncertainty of adulthood.’ Tarlinton’s boys are familiar, occupying the outdoor settings they inhabit as a matter of custom. Some appear defiant, others wistful. While their deep reflection seems genuine, I suspect it is more likely to reflect the directorial skills of the artist than the psychological state of her subjects. Tarlinton’s boys are real, and they clearly aren’t wimps.
Angela Tarlinton was born in Queanbeyan and now lives at Tathra on the NSW South Coast. Her work is in public and private collections in Australia and overseas. PhotoAccess is very pleased to present this sensitive, beautiful work by Angela Tarlinton in the HUW DAVIES GALLERY.
David Chalker
