Dan O’Day – I closed
my eyes and saw this
Huw Davies Gallery
Photoaccess at Manuka Arts Centre
Corner Manuka Circle and NSW Crescent, Griffith
Until 2 September
I closed my eyes and
saw this is a welcome return to the Huw Davies Gallery for Canberra-based
artist Dan O’Day. O’Day has been a regular contributor to group shows at
Photoaccess, but this is his first solo outing in Canberra since Still in 2006. The emerging talent which
was on display in that, his first photographic show, has been refined in the
intervening years to reveal the rare and wonderful product of a natural gift
combining with a dedication to craft.
O’Day’s approach to image-making reflects his previous
incarnation as a painter. His images are carefully constructed—from concept to
story board, from staging to printing—and privilege surface, composition and,
above all, the creative process. These are images born in the mind of the
artist and realised through complex and painstaking enactment. Artist, model
and landscape collaborate to create moments of solemn stillness and fleeting
fantasy. The photographic medium, its immediacy and capacity for unmediated
truth-telling, is subverted in a highly self-conscious manipulation of time and
space.
Many of the images are taken at break of day, or the last
moments of twilight. Limited light leads to creeping shadows and subtle
silhouettes. The models are pictured alone in forest, field and hillside, often
from behind, their stature dwarfed by the immensity of the natural setting. Tiny
figures placed in overwhelming outdoor surroundings were a hallmark of high
Romanticism, and O’Day adopts this visual trope to explore solitude and
stillness in a time when such moments are rarely chanced upon.
It is noteworthy that the artist says he has become more
comfortable with stillness since 2006. In his artist’s statement he notes,
“that ‘stillness’ I used to run from, I now find myself running toward”. The
visual realisation of this pursuit of silent moments of immobility has produced
emotionally complex results. Rather than simple stillness, the models seem
caught in pensive sadness, the darkness seems to encroach rather than recede.
Compared to the images from Still,
this collection of works is decidedly darker. There are no colourful balloons
injecting their joyous whimsy into these lonely landscapes. Where O’Day’s
earlier models seemed to dance and frolic through the frame, these models stand
or sit, firmly grounded in space. Is Little
Red Rosie running from the big bad wolf? Has the girl in One Day lost sight of her dreams in the
scribbled frenzy which threatens to invade her reverie? This body of work
reveals the oppressive power of stillness and darkness, the questions and the
uncertainty to be glimpsed in moments snatched from the frenzy of life.
A selection of smaller prints is also on display at
Photoaccess. These works, sourced from O’Day’s archives, provide a glimpse of a
more spontaneous and unscripted aspect of his practice: tiny figures walk,
dance and swim in playful settings, trees stretch against a boundless sky.
O’Day pays the bills as a wedding photographer, and his
romantic sensibilities translate easily across commercial and artistic
pursuits. This collection of images confirms his ability and his sensitivity, a
combination of melancholy, menace and mystery which reveals moments of magic.
