Art and the river

It’s been a long year, 2020, what with the apocalyptic fires, the global pandemic and higher education (my industry) going into meltdown. Between the smoke, the worrying, the working twice as hard as usual, the home schooling, the doom-scrolling, the worrying about children worrying, there hasn’t been a lot of time for blogging, although there have still been moments of tranquillity and wonder on the water and and in the garden.

A triangle - the front of a wooden kayak - bisects a very still river, which reflects foggy trees on either side.

Bute and sunny trees

But something really good did happen, towards the end of the year, worth getting out of my rut to blog about: my first photography exhibition. I had opportunity to take over Hornsby Council’s Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre – closed for much for 2020 during the pandemic – for a couple of weeks.  The exhibition was called “Deerubbin at Dawn” and was part of Sydney’s annual Head On photography festival – which normally happens in May each year but was deferred this year, like so many other things.  But thanks to Hornsby Council and heaps of curatorial help from my fabulous  friend Jane Simon it did end up happening!

I was really lucky to have my colleague and friend, Dr Ian Collinson, polymath and environmental humanities guy, write a catalogue essay for the exhibition that we also put on the wall in the grand front entrance:

Deerubbin at dawn: river lives on the Hawkesbury reveals Nicole Matthews’ familiarity with her neighbourhood, a familiarity that is a product of the conscious and frequent ‘looking’ that landscape photography demands of its practitioners. Taking many pictures of the same landscape over a protracted time—in different seasons, from different vantage points—produces images that evince an intimacy and a local knowledge, as well as epic and aesthetic grandeur. These are pictures of home not a remote wilderness, even though some may stir a romantic desire for the distant, the untouched and the awe-inspiring. The exhibition speaks to the interconnectedness of what we unhelpfully label culture and nature as though one could exist without the other. 

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Taken from a kayak, these photographs alter our normal perspective as we see the River from a different viewpoint: from the inside out, from the River itself rather than a distant look-out. The images are also taken at an unfamiliar time of day. Through the floating eye of the camera we see the River at dawn with its soft, subdued colours and unique misty veils that tease and disappear as daybreak turns into day. Through this double shift of perspective and time the exhibition wants us to look again (and again) at what might be a familiar landscape to those who live in the embrace of the Hawkesbury River.

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Despite their romantic moments, these are pictures of a cultural landscape, landscape as everyday life as it is lived in a place, a life transformed by topography and a topography transformed by life. Deerubbin and its margins is an Indigenous ‘Country’, a national park, a suburb on Sydney’s northern edge, a landscape crafted by generations of human action and activity. The images speak to the labour and leisure that are intertwined and enabled by Deerubbin, of oyster-farming, the daily migration of commuters, and weekends spent sailing, motor-cruising or fishing. Humans are put in their place here; present but not overbearing, integral but not dominant.

Distant picture of a group of yachts and a buoy

Pixellated yachts

Australasian Darter, wings out, facing a bleached out moon

Darting at the moon

 
The front of a wooden kayak heading into a reflective misty scene

And suddenly fishermen

If you’d like to get more of a sense of the atmos of the gallery, here are some little videos with some of the soundtrack I had playing in the space to make it seem a little more… estuarine.

Two weeks of chatting to friends and blow ins, of zoom meetings with real-life mansion background, of selling a surprisingly large number of prints and 2021 Calendars (thank you generous pals and hooray for Christmas) and it was all over.

Four wires dropping against a white wall

The empty gallery

But not completely!  Buoyed by how enjoyable I found the whole thing, and cheered that people seemed to like my pics, I have another, much smaller exhibition happening in the front room of the Dangar Island Depot from January 24-March 6 2021.   It’s not many islands in a major river in Australia that are accessible by public transport but Dangar Island is one of them – jump off the train at Hawkesbury River Station (with its spanking new lifts, opened only last week) and onto the Brooklyn Ferry Service and you’re there.

And if you’re too far away to come along, you can buy prints of any of the photos on this post. Prices are between $60 and $350, depending on size. Or you can buy a 2021 calendar for $30.  Check out the images in the calendar here:

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6 thoughts on “Art and the river

  1. Hi, congratulations on the outstanding photos. They really made my day. Even though the subject matter is familiar to me, you have captured the scenes beautifully. I’m getting the kayak out right now for a poste Xmas excursion!

    • I hope you had a wonderful time in your kayak. Thanks for your kind words about my photos – much appreciated! Thanks so much for reading.

  2. Congratulations! That’s fantastic! I’ve always thought your photography should be in an exhibit. I love your moody river shots in particular.

    • Thanks so much Jane! I feel very lucky to have had the chance to have my pictures in a gallery. It really was wonderful. I would recommend it! I think your pics would also be gallery-worthy!

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