Alex Flannery, fox cub in long grass, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
Alex Flannery
Gallery 2
Friday 18 April - Sunday 11 May
Opening Thursday 17 April, 6pm-8pm
Recently, while bushwalking, Flannery startled a feral pig with her litter of piglets. The family hurried across a creek, along an animal trail, and into the wooded, scrubby hills. Flannery followed them and found a maze of animal pathways winding through the thick bush. This was the Forest Passage — a place of shelter but also of mystery, boundless in subtle variations and teeming with furtive wildlife. In the exhibition The Forest Passage, Flannery uses digital and film cameras, often close to ground level, to examine this hidden world.
The photos were printed in the darkroom using a range of darkroom techniques. Some were originally digital images others were printed from a photo negative and re-digitised. The environment is beautifully imperfect, the trees are often half burnt out with large limbs missing, the animals too are marked by many travails. The wombats rear ends are crisscrossed with multiple scars, the rabbits have battle notched ears, and the kangaroos are tough and hoary from living always under the elements. Using the effect of expired darkroom paper and the combination of digital imperfections with darkroom dodging and burning evokes the materiality of a well-worn life.
