Zo Damage 6/27/23 Zo Damage 6/27/23

Ruth Maddison

Touted as “one of Australia’s leading feminist photographers” (Inside Imaging 2021), Maddison’s documentary and creative fine-art photographic histories span from 1976 to the current day. From political protests in the early 1970s, to visual documentation of the 2019 bushfires that ravaged her hometown of Eden in NSW, Maddison “presents the shifting nature of long held personal and historical truths” (ibid).

Zo Damage 6/25/23 Zo Damage 6/25/23

Elieen Quinlan

First published 18 May 2020

American contemporary photographer Eileen Quinlan challenges "the conventions of photography", turning the lens inwards to explore the durational transformation of lived experience, memories and materials (Cotton 2013, 366). Following in the footsteps of practitioners from Moholy-Nagy to James Welling”, the artist deconstructs the intricacies of photographic technique and technology to reveal “new means of expression" (Stillman 2011).

Quinlan's work and approach to photography have contributed to my deepening appreciation of the potentiality of the medium, "present as a quality of the image due to the irreducibility of the abstract and the real, on the one hand, as well as the incorporation within any understanding of their work of the techniques of which they are the result, on the other (Benjamin 2010,199).

All but mirroring my own experience, Quinlan (2013) recalls how music “lifted me out of a […] tremulous adolescence, connecting me for the first time to like-minded souls”. The artist reflects, “Through music, I discovered joy, community, and hope, not to mention an identity” (ibid).

In 2020 I commenced study in the Master of Photography program at RMIT University Melbourne. Less than six weeks into the course, the pandemic's onset and ensuing lockdowns forced me to look outside my 20-year career in the live music sector as a concert and social documentary photographer (Damage 2021, 8-9). Through my research, I discovered the work of Eileen Quinlan. The artist inspired my exploration of abstraction and development of practice in alchemical modes of the medium – as seen in Invent Define Destruct (ibid, 34-40) –Quinlan’s multidisciplinary approach in selecting subject matter and processes – continues to inform my practice four years on.

Eileen Quinlan, No One Sleeps 2014 — Eileen Quinlan, *No One Sleeps* 2014

Eileen Quinlan, Fried Sensor 2015 — Eileen Quinlan, *Fried Sensor* 2015

Eileen Quinlan, *Camp Creek*, 2020, gelatin silver print, 1168x914mm

Relevance to practice

Abstraction, Contemporary, 21st-century, Photography, Alternative photography, Film, Large format, Darkroom, Alternative printing

Keywords

Eileen Quinlan, Contemporary, Photography, Abstract, Photogram, Chemography, Large format, Medium format, 21st-century artists, Community of practice

References

Cotton, Charlotte. 2015. Photography Is Magic. New York: Aperture.

McDonough, Thomas. 2016, "Eileen Quinlan Between Substrate and Sublimate". Eileen Quinlan Selected Press: 2-5. Miguel Abreu Gallery. PDF. https://miguelabreugallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/EQuinlan_SelectedPress_opt-2.pdf>

Quinlan, Eileen. 2013. “THIS LONG CENTURY.” Thislongcentury.com. 2013. http://www.thislongcentury.com/eileen-quinlan.Cotton, C 2015, Photography is Magic, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY

Quinlan, Eileen. 2014. No One Sleeps. Image. https://www.campolipresti.com/artists/eileen-quinlan/bio.

Quinlan, Eileen. 2015. Fried Sensor. Image. https://miguelabreugallery.com/artists/quinlan/works/.

Quinlan, Eileen. 2020. Camp Creek. Image. https://miguelabreugallery.com/artists/quinlan/works/.

Squires, C, Batchen, G, Baker, G & Steyerl H 2013, What Is a Photograph?, International Center for Photography and DelMonico Books, New York, NY

Stillman, Steel. 2011. “Eileen Quinlan: An Interview”. Art News. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/eileen-quinlan-2-62881/.

Zo Damage 6/13/23 Zo Damage 6/13/23

Klea McKenna

Klea McKenna embodies the ideal of what defines contemporary photography, applying innovation to create unique photographic works of art with striking detail and immaterial abstraction (Figures 1 and 2). In her series Automatic Earth, McKenna underscores the materiality of photograms, hand embossing the “rings of cross sections of trees and into cracks in the earth” to create imprints of their surfaces on photographic paper. McKenna then exposes the imprinted substrate to light, producing what the artist defines as a “photographic relief” (McKenna 2023). As seen in the images that are the foundation of Trust, Possibilities and Spheres – that acknowledge the rejuvenation of Melbourne’s inner-city waterways and parklands – the artist honours the histories of the referents through physical engagement with her techniques, equipment and subject matter to reveal profound nuance and energy.

Klea McKenna, *Motherland #2*, 2017, photographic rubbing, unique gelatin silver photogram, 1524x1524mm

Bibliography

McKenna, Klea. 2016. Your Generation. Image. https://www.euqinomgallery.com/mckenna_automaticearth.

McKenna, Klea. 2017. Motherland #2. Image. https://www.euqinomgallery.com/mckenna_automaticearth.

McKenna, Klea. 2023. “Automatic Earth”. ISSUU. PDF. https://issuu.com/euqinomprojects/docs/klea_mckenna_automatic_earth_available_inventory.

Zo Damage 8/18/22 Zo Damage 8/18/22

David Tatnall

David Tatnall, regarded as one of Australia’s foremost experts in large format (Lane 2007) and pinhole photography (Hodgkinson 2015), pushes the boundaries of the medium, epitomising the ephemerality of time and space, particularly evident in the atmospheric potency of the artist’s long exposure pinhole photographs.

**Figure 2.** David Tatnall, *Erith Island Bulli Bay*, 2012, pinhole photograph gelatin silver print, 279x356mm

Keywords

David Tatnall, Photographer, Large format, Pinhole

Bibliography

Hodgkinson, Veronica. 2015. "David Tatnall – Capture Create Share". Veronica-Hodgkinson.Com. http://veronica-hodgkinson.com/?tag=david-tatnall.

Lane, Terry. 2007. “Big Ideas”. Podcast. The Terry Lane Interviews - That Photograph. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-terry-lane-interviews---thatphotograph/3212556.

Tatnall, David. 2012. Erith Island Bulli Bay. Image. https://chrysalis.com.au/Artwork-Tatnall-ErithIslandBulliBay-3088.htm.

Tatnall, David. 2012. Snow Gum and CRB Hut. Image. https://chrysalis.com.au/Artwork-Tatnall-SnowGumandCRBHut-3118.htm