Australian STILL GALLERY once again had a big surprise in store for us with its photographic delicacy: Pat Brassington is one the most exciting photo artists across Australia and has lured the beholder into her surreal worlds for thirty years. She has just received the Redlands Konica Minolta Prize for 'Pair Bonding'. The gallery presents her latest works in an exhibition titled 'Just So', a reference to Rudyard Kipling’s similarly titled book 'Just So Stories' from 1902, which answers the questions of where camels get their humps, why rhinos are so wrinkled, or where armadillos come from. Scientific publications just can't contend with his imaginative explanations – or with the surreal realms of Pat Brassington for that matter.
“As with Kipling’s stories, there is a fantastical element and an apparent narrative that lurks behind Brassington’s images. What is that fish doing in that mouth? Who owns that lurid red tongue, an animal or a human? Brassington conflates opposites – human and animal, shock and the banal, attraction and repulsion, asking us to consider, perhaps, the delicate balance between these constructs or to think about the stories we tell to explain ourselves to each other,” the gallery tells GoSee.
“Brassington is influenced by surrealism and Freud’s concepts of the unconscious, which guide her internal creative process along with her material one. The collision of the unexpected is rife and takes form through collage. Using an archive of her own black & white photographs, found imagery and objects as a starting point, she works to alter and shift what is recognizable, pitching the resulting images just off the verge of normality. It takes a moment sometimes to notice that things aren’t quite as we’d expect.
Despite walking this thin line, Brassington’s works remain seductive. With a lightness of touch, gentle humour and a deft use of colour, she creates works and worlds where the senses prevail. This plays out in 'Just So', where sensual, visceral qualities both attract and disturb. Its colour palette, while largely monochromatic, has pulsating shots of red: a lurid long tongue, a pouting pair of red lips, reminding us of the very animal nature of our being.”
In 2013, Pat Brassington won the prestigious William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize. Her work has been featured extensively in national and international exhibitions, including the 2012 Adelaide Biennial Parallel Collisions; Á Rebours, a major survey exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2012), which toured nationally; a solo exhibition in Lönnstrom Art Museum, Finland/Helsinki Festival (2008); Cambridge Road at the Institute of Modern Art (2007); the 2004 Biennale of Sydney; and a major retrospective at the Ian Potter Gallery, VIC (2002). Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of Western Australia and Artbank.
Pat Brassington 'Just So' in an exhibition at Stills Gallery, 36 Gosbell Street, 2021 paddington nsw