Tag: Australian fine art photography

Vale Ian Lobb (1948-2023), photographer

December 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Ian Lobb, Station Street, Fairfield
5 October 2022

The luminosity of Ian Lobb

These words are a celebration of the life of an extraordinary human, a heartfelt stream of consciousness text that touches on aspects of the life of Ian Lobb, photographer.

Ian Lobb was my friend. He was a poet, photographer, raconteur. He my first photographer lecturer at university who I could always rely on for advice on art, photography, writing and life. He was an audiophile and a lover of music, anything from classical to jazz to Nina Simone, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan. He was a lover of women. He was dreamer and a philosopher. He adored the American artist Cy Twombly. He was a rabid Sydney Swans fan!

In the early 1990s monthly reviews of student photographic work at Phillip Institute of Technology (PIT, which later became part of RMIT University) with Ian and fellow lecturer Les Walkling were electric. Ideas and passion for the work abounded, discussions ran for hours on how to create work – with feeling and insight into the condition of image (and human) becoming. Here Ian introduced me to Tarkovsky, Eisenstein and Joseph Campbell, and the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, Kyoto, Japan. And of course he introduced me to the French photographer Eugène Atget – oh how we loved Atget, and Strand, Weston, Caponigro and Minor White. We could talk on any subject. Many years later, at our regular coffee catchups in Fairfield, I would take him new photography books that I had bought and recent object d’art purchases and, over lunch, the conversation would range far and wide about photography, art and life. He helped me sequence my work – have you thought about this pairing together, what about swapping this one over – and we drew inspiration from the sequences of Minor White and his use of “ice/fire”.

Ian was a storyteller. His photographs tell stories. From the teachings of Minor White (especially his “Three Canons”) there was an acknowledgement in his work of the spirit of the object he was photographing – a moment of revelation sought in the negative and subsequent print through a connection and circular transmission of energy between artist and object back through the camera and onto film (Zen)(for example see Eagles Nest, Cape Paterson 1975, below). A moment of revelation of spirit that was so important to Ian that this moment of “revelatio” can still be seen and felt in his recent mobile phone images.

Ian was aware, fully present. He was attuned to his surroundings like few people I have met for he was tremendously attentive, tremendously awake and sensitive to the environment and the vibrations of energy that emanated from the city, the land, the sky. Imagine travelling to a small patch of earth in the Black Ranges year after year to photograph in all seasons and in all weather something that he could see and feel in that land… something any other human would not even recognise, would walk past without a moments hesitation as though nothing was there, was of no import. But not Ian. He recognised and felt the energy of that place, space.

Talking to the wonderful Australian photographer David Tatnall who was also a friend of Ian’s we reminisced the other day. Ian had won an Australia Council grant and went to America on board a cargo ship teaching yoga on the way over, first going to South America and then on to America. There he visited Barbara, Wynn Bullock’s wife, and Ralph Gibson, Brett Weston, Harry Callahan and William Clift. He attended workshops with Ansel Adams and Paul Caponigro. He visited the Museum of Modern Art’s reading room and examined box after box of iconic prints by the masters, all jumbled together as he told me in folders with little order or care for their preservation. David told me he rocked up unannounced at Eliot Porter’s and said he was a visiting photographer from Australia, and while Eliot made a pot of tea he was left to go through boxes of dye transfer prints. Back then there was a camaraderie of photography very different from the present. Can you imagine doing that today!

He conversed with the masters. Like a pebble making ripples in a pond the energy of these photographers was transferred by osmosis through Ian to a wider network of artists. David and I remembered how Ian taught us to look at the print upside down in order to understand the balance of the print and develop an appreciation of its structure and the music inherent in it. Look at the image of Caponigro’s Reflecting Stream, Redding, CT (1968, below) – one of Ian’s favourites – and you just know that water has to be “wet” in that print, that the shadows of the trees on the water have to be (Ansel Adams) Zone 2, and that the Zone 7 patch of grey under the boulder in the centre of the image is critical to its music, its balance. Ian knew these things instinctively, intuitively. Ian also taught both of us how to make Ansel Adams’ “burning in” tool… three pieces of stiff black board (with the top two pieces secured by tape to make a hinges) with gradually larger holes in each board for use under the enlarger, so that you could easily flip the boards to a larger or smaller hole for “burning in” while making a print. We both still have these indispensable tools, passed down like an oral history from the master. On reflection, learning from Ian and Les during those early days printing black and white photographs in the basement darkroom at Phillip Institute of Technology (PIT) in Bundoora, Melbourne were some of the happiest days of my life.

With friend and fellow director William (Bill) Heimerman (1950-2017), The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop, Melbourne brought to Australia some of the most respected master photographers from around the world: Wynn Bullock, Emmet Gowin, Eikoh Hosoe, William Clift, Harry Callahan, Paul Caponigro, William Eggleston, Ralph Gibson, Duane Michaels, Lisette Model, August Sander, Aaron Siskind among others … and promoted local Australian photographers such as John Cato, Carol Jerrems, Christopher Koller, Jeff Busby and more. I was privileged to have several solo exhibitions in the gallery space. For the opening of Carol Jerrems exhibition at the gallery, Ian asked her who she would most like to attend – and Carol said Ron Barassi, then the most popular sporting and cultural personality in Australia. And on the day of the opening who attended – the great man himself. I don’t know how Ian did it, but he did!

David Tatnall took Ian to Cape Paterson only a couple of weeks before his passing, the first time he had been there since his father’s death many years ago (see the photographs below). Ian took some photographs with camera on tripod and on the mobile phone and then sat down, sat down and just looked at things in that self deprecating way of his. He just looked at the rocks and the form and the light and soaked in the spirit of the place. The same with his favourite tree, his beloved lemon scented gum in the garden of his church in Fairfield. Much as the Black Range series many years earlier, he took thousands of photographs on his mobile phone of this tree in all weather conditions, at all times of the day and year. He saw and felt something there that he kept coming back too, searching for the answer to that one great question that he could never answer.

David said that he believed that he was only using the mobile phone as a visual notebook before he came back to the place to photograph with an SLR – but respectfully I must disagree. Increasingly in his later years Ian surrendered the use of his bigger digital cameras to the flexibility of his mobile phone camera, trading in their heft for the felt immediacy of the mobile phone image and his ability to study the results as he pleased. While many would dismiss these phones images as preludes to the finished work, Ian recognised (as do many artists) that these impressions, these deeply felt visual sketches, had become fully rendered works of art. He moved with the times. As he observed, “For the last 18 months I’ve been spending the first few hours of the day in the local church yard where I am photographing a lemon scented gum. I’m doing this with an iPhone as a way of exploring different ways of working that facilitates.” (Email for William Clift sent to Marcus Bunyan 22 January 2023)

Ian loved telling a story. And he was passionate about the Sydney Swans. He regaled me with the story of how he was so incensed by seeing photographers inside the circle of players celebrating in the rooms after a victory that he wrote to the club to explain that this space, this inner sanctum of celebration, should be a “sacred space” as he put it just for the players… and that photographers should not be allowed in to that space, but only be able to look in from the outside. He was special like that. He understood the significance of that circle and the energy that flowed across the space as players linked arms and belted out the club song. Nothing should disturb the sanctity of that space, much as nothing should disturb the energy of a rock face.

Ian was a (com)passionate man. He was a spiritual man. Throughout his life he had a deep abiding faith in Jesus and the benevolence and goodness of the Almighty. Now he is be gone but his energy still surrounds us. In his beloved lemon scented gum and in the many memorable ideas and images he shared with us.

Ian Lobb was my friend. I will miss his wise counsel.

God bless him xx

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. A very interesting analysis by Gary Sauer-Thompson on Ian Lobb’s Black Range series and new concepts in contemporary landscape photography can be found in the article “Ian Lobb + contemporary landscape photography” on the Thought Factory website January 28, 2024. Recommended reading.

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. Many thankx to David Tatnall for allowing me to publish his images that are included in this posting.

“If you think of all the wonderful experiences of making images – and then sequencing them – really it is top of the world experience. If this then happens when society is particularly in flux – on spiritual and identity issues, and sequencing happens by someone who is sensitive to the time and the issues. And is sensitive to “image”. Then you really really hope that the book is well produced.”

Ian Lobb email to Marcus Bunyan, 29 May 2015

“In “LA Confidential” they give away their source by using the word “valediction”. A good name for a poem, maybe the best, but not an exhausted idea. Look out I have been inspired by genius. People say that they have to do something more difficult than they need. That’s ok. – there are angels to prevent that – but if you don’t want to go that way, most of them aren’t against us.”

Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Monday 11 September 2023

“Marcus – can we be told how to love ? The first thought is no – but I’m not going to rush into an answer. Can we be told how to love a photograph or which photographs to love? I do know that my walk this morning has been recalling which photographs I have loved – and stopping on those where I have not lately dwelt. I didn’t get past the Paul Strand of the white picket fence. Sitting now on Station st as the coffee shops carry out their tables and seeing it.”

Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Saturday, 16 September 2023

Ian Lobb speaking at a celebration of the life of William (Bill) Heimerman (1950-2017)

Windsor, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, October 21, 2017.
Thank you to Peter Leiss for allowing me to publish this video.

Paul Strand (American, 1890 – 1976)
White Fence, Port Kent, New York
1916 (negative); 1945 (print)
Gelatin silver print

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Reflecting Stream, Redding, CT
1968
Gelatin silver print

During this particular workshop Caponigro was sometimes in a room where he could display several prints at once – he would never take them all down after talking, but move the first images away and attach new images to the right as he talked. The workshop was with the senior students of an Oregon art school, it can be dated because it was during the impeachment of Nixon.

~ Ian Lobb email to Marcus Bunyan, 6 January 2015

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Point Lobos, California
1948
Gelatin silver print

Marcus, have you been to Point Lobos? I think you would find it a big experience if you were there at a quiet time. Imagine Minor White going to visit Weston on Wildcat Hill, and then the short drive down to Point Lobos – there would be some frisson in that car!! It’s not quite Nietzsche going to visit Wagner – but it’s not bad. For a lot of the year the day starts with fog and then the fog pulls back a little offshore and then comes back again. I think Weston’s Pelican would have been photographed in fog.

~ Ian Lobb email to Marcus Bunyan, 29 May 2015

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Merced River, Cliffs, Autumn
1939
Gelatin silver print

When talking to him [Ansel Adams] you can imagine the number of mediocre questions. While I was listening all of his answers were quotes from his books. There had to be an extraordinary move to get him to break ranks with this rule.

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Sunday, 5 March 2023

Black Range series

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled
1989
from the Black Range series 1986-1989
36.9 × 36.7cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Hallmark Cards Australia Pty Ltd, 1989
© Ian Lobb

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled
1989
from the Black Range series 1986-1989
35.6 × 35.6cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Hallmark Cards Australia Pty Ltd, 1989
© Ian Lobb

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled
1986, printed 1989
from the Black Range series 1986-1989
26.4 × 26.4cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Hallmark Cards Australia Pty Ltd, 1989
© Ian Lobb

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled
1989
from the Black Range series 1986-1989
36.5 × 36.5cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Hallmark Cards Australia Pty Ltd, 1989
© Ian Lobb

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
No title (Soft focus landscape with branch detail in foreground)
1989, printed 1998
from the Black Range series 1986-1989
38.2 × 38.4cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by the artist, Fellow, 2000
© Ian Lobb

The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop

Peter Leiss (Australian, b. 1951)
Untitled [Bill Heimerman and Ian Lobb at the rear of the Photographers’ Gallery]
c. 1975-1980
Gelatin silver print

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Untitled [Atget’s Work Room with Contact Printing Frames]
c. 1910

I am very familiar with the old suitcases under the desk – I think that only one – if any – is a suitcase.

This is typically how an exhibition would arrive at the Photographers’ Gallery – it would hold about 40 matted prints. Undo the strap and open the box to typically find 2 or 3 brown paper parcels. Maybe some archival tissue on the next layer down = sometimes not = and then about 20 mounted and matted prints sometimes face to face. This is the way Caponigro for example sent his prints – I’m trying to remember William Clift – Maybe one box like that and a handmade bigger one – or maybe 2 wooden boxes = but at least half the exhibitions arrived in boxes like that.

But have a look to the left of those boxes –what are they? They look like old fashioned double-darks – maybe for a quarter plate camera. The distance from the emulsion to the edge of the case was different for these compared to the last generation 5×4 double darks. People sometimes tried to make a way of putting the old film carriers onto 5×4″ cameras – but they would be focussing on the wrong spot by not making adjustments for the different positions of the emulsion.

To return to the boxes – they would be waiting for us at the airport, and we would have to spin a yarn to the customs agents telling them that the prints were for “educational purposes only”. It was a great educational experience to unwrap some of the prints when they came with a piece of tissue paper between the print and the mat – you could see something of the image and then get to imagine it before removing the tissue.

Re Robert Frank – also note the size of the Lupe next to his hand. Ralph Gibson had Robert Franks Leica enlarger – For some reason it was in his “living room” – I have seen it!!!

~ Ian Lobb email to Marcus Bunyan 1 December, 2015

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Untitled [Bill Heimerman and Ian Lobb at the Dog Rocks near Geelong]
c. 1975-1980
Gelatin silver print

Cape Liptrap and Cape Paterson

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Ocean (Cape Liptrap)
1979
Gelatin silver photograph
17.3 × 22.5cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1980
© Ian Lobb

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
No title (Black sand and rocks)
1989; printed 1992
Gelatin silver photograph
34.3 × 34.3cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by the artist, Fellow, 2000
© Ian Lobb

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Eagles Nest, Cape Paterson
1975; printed 1979
Gelatin silver photograph
17.6 × 17.4cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1980
© Ian Lobb

David Tatnall (Australian, b. 1955)
Ian at Eagles Nest, Cape Paterson
November 2023

This was the first Ian time had returned to Cape Paterson since the death of his father many years ago.

David Tatnall (Australian, b. 1955)
Ian at Eagles Nest, Cape Paterson
November 2023

Lemon scented gum, Fairfield

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Ian Lobb, Fairfield
December 2021

Maxwell Allara (American born Italy, 1906-1981)
Untitled (Minor White During a Workshop)
1959
Gelatin silver print

David Tatnall (Australian, b. 1955)
Ian in front of his favourite tree, Fairfield
November 2021

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Moencopi Strata, Capital Reef, Utah
1962
Gelatin silver print

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Lemon scented gum
24 January 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Lemon scented gum
14 February 2023

“The light comes down the tree. But for some days it twists right to left and makes an early morning shadow.

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Monday 11 September 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Lemon scented gum
22 February 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Lemon scented gum
8 March 2023

Marcus – thanks for the mystic particles. After I have apple and rhubarb I’ll be walking to check on the tree in the church-garden. I’m interested in this, rather than my own garden. Who knows why I can’t photograph my own. Do you have a garden close by that you can walk through easily? I can’t wait for the sun to move a bit further and the light to come back on church gum. A few weeks.

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Wednesday 12 July 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Lemon scented gum
13 September 2023

Mobile phone photographs

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled (Green woman)
22 November 2022

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Alex
21 December 2022

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled (pink and black)
31 January 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
The path from the coffee shop
Fairfield, 4 February 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
The path to the coffee shop
Fairfield, 4 February 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Building his ying, Ignoring his yang
21 February 2023

The First One

First one through the forest
First one on the beach
First one through the shallows
First one in the deep
Yes, first in the water
To swim out of reach
First one to belong
And then to be gone
First one to be gone too soon.

First foot off the platform
First step off the map
First one to learn
With nothing to teach
First one in this life
To whisper my name.
First one through my shallows
First one in my deep
First one to be gone too soon.

First winter field night
When the fires are lit
First soul at midnight
Watching burning trees twist.
At your back is the darkness
That turns you to see …
First one to the shadows
First one to the deep
First one to be gone too soon.

There’s a sound that’s so big
We can’t even hear
Not a murmur, a pulse
A note, nor a song
After midnight it wakes you
To its echoes and trace
First one to be swallowed
First one in the deep
First one to be gone too soon.

You’re the first, yes its true
On the roll call of friends
Now there’s spaces, not names
And you: you’re the worst.
You’re a very faint glow
On a very faint path
You were first through the shallows
First one in the deep
First one to be gone too soon.

Ian Lobb 28 August 2018

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
A small moment with…
25 February 2023

“If only the lens didn’t have anti flare – it would have been an Atget moment.”

~ Ian Lobb

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Saint-Cloud
1926
Albumen print

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Billiard
2 March 2023

Ian: Please see full screen for pleasing puns

Marcus: Love how the graffiti imitates the shape of the wood in the trolley and how the triangle of white dots is a metaphor for the billiard triangle used to rack up the balls

Ian: Yes. And with the billiard signage I thought it was like a players gesture – towards the corner pocket

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Friday, 3 March 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled (Mother)
30 April 2023

Apart from the teenagers at church, the mention that you were talking to your mother, was one of the few mentions of that relationship since my mother had passed. One minute after that I took this on my way home.

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Sunday, 30 April 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled (black oblong)
Fairfield, 8 May 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
Untitled (My walk this morning)
Fairfield, 11 May 2023

On my second roll of HP4 were pictures of a young lady lying under clear sheets of curved 2mm plastic that I had sprayed with water (1968?). The attached is from my walk this morning. The similar mood is quite scary.

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Thursday, 11 May 2023

Ian Lobb (Australian, 1948-2023)
mmmm, Pasta Poetry
Fairfield, 21 June 2023

Thinking about John Cato this morning. If you can google “the world is too much with us” – Wordsworth – and give a toast to John. Proteus!!!

~ Ian Lobb text to Marcus Bunyan, Wednesday, 5 July 2023

The world is too much with us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;–
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
William Wordsworth 1802

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Coronation of Sesostris (Part III)
2000

Affirmation: When you Sing

(An affirmation from Cy Twombly’s Coronation of Sesostris)

If you sing, don’t let them hesitate
When you sing, don’t let them make signs of regret
When you sing, let them bear the loss of silence
When you sing, the lost gods are found
When you sing, the birds and trees love their shadows
Lying quietly on the ground
When you sing, the mark of nature and the mark of the mark rejoice
When you sing we trace to the source of trace – the realm.

Sing to the ghosts, sing to those to come
Flow over – into – flow over
Let the trees rise from the earth because you sing:
New sunlight on new leaves cutting into space
Write your name
with their scintilla through the air as you sing
Then each letter narrows, fades white
Still unending trace as sing and sing as a lost god.
One majesty fades to another
Sing Osiris , sing that god into Orpheus

scribes
Porous sparse voice, could have been scattered
Empty surface – instead open sky
Bell
Nothing to shatter
Sing for the old rivers,
Sailors sink into sails,
The opposite bank still opposite
Take this – sing – most important , to the next life.
Like tall trees, rising from …

Gods cannot depart while love, I mean song, remains
Gods have not departed: it would have been heeded,
Reported as a hoax,
No arc of departure divulged
song, weightless
Gods have not departed – it is a drunken hoax, rumour.

Ian Lobb 30 August 2018

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Coronation of Sesostris (Part V)
2000

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Coronation of Sesostris (Part VI)
2000

Last house

Are you travelling to this very last house
On the very last street of this town?
That I built here for you,
Where I wait for you
If you go round the back you’ll find wild flowers
That you could almost touch
And you would watch the clouds come down from the hills

Long ago I promised this to you
It became my story that you’d come
To the last street
And to the last house
I watch all the doors to see you enter
So that we would almost touch
And you could watch the rain come down from the hills

Yes, it’s true, the house backs onto darkness
I swear there’s really nothing out there
Beyond this last street
Beyond this last house
Nothing you could be sure to name
Nothing we can almost touch
And at night you could keep watch, from here to the hills

You can smell salt in the air from all of the rooms
And hear the wind in the waves
But out the back you’ll only find wildflowers.
Not those grey choppy waves
That we can almost touch
On this last street
In this last house.

Ian Lobb 29 August 2018

Flickerd (Australian)
Zac Foot of Sydney during the 2019 NEAFL round 14 match between NT Thunder and Sydney at TIO Stadium on Saturday, 6 July 2019 in Darwin, Northern Territory
2019
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Read the full text and see more early photographic images by Joyce Evans

Exhibition: ‘Joyce Evans’ at the National Library of Australia, Canberra

Exhibition dates: 4th April – 5th November 2023

Curators: Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll and Shelly McGuire

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019) 'May Day University Labour Club banner, May Day March, Flinders Street, Melbourne' 1951 from the exhibition 'Joyce Evans' at the National Library of Australia, April - Nov 2023

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Students Protesting during a May Day March on Flinders Street, Melbourne
1951
Photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

At far-left, John Clendenin, philosopher and president of University of Melbourne SRC. Banner-bearer Jill Warwick, later a TV Producer, vice-president UniMelb SRC. The Forum Theatre on Flinders Street in the background.

That bohemian force of nature who was Australian artist, curator, teacher, writer, philanthropist, poet, gallery owner and collector Joyce Evans OAM (1929-2019) would have been the first to admit that she was not the most naturally gifted photographer the world has ever known. But Joyce worked assiduously at her craft for over 70 years and became a very fine image maker, picturing her beloved Australia through landscape, documentary and portrait photographs for many a decade.

Her early and historically important photographs of the late 1940s and early 1950s (of which three are in this posting) represent the post Second World War flowering of an Australian civil right movement. Further images from this period can be seen in the book We Had Such High Hopes: Student Activism and the Peace Movement 1949-1952, A Photographic Memoir by Joyce Evans published by Australian Scholarly Publishing in 2019; and you can read my foreword to the book and see more images from it in the Art Blart posting “Nothing emerges from nothing” (2019).

Joyce had an innate knack of putting people at their ease when having their photograph taken. Never without a camera close at hand, she would approach complete strangers anywhere and ask them whether she could take their portrait… and she was never refused. She had the most gracious way about her, as though she was speaking in communion with her subject: whether that be the contemplation of the Australian landscape, Indigenous Australians, or up close and personal portraits of the ordinary or famous. As author Professor Sasha Grishin observes in his book Joyce Evans (National Library of Australia, 2022) she “was an artist who possessed a definite photographic personality… [who] pursued an agenda that shone a light on racism, social inequality and environmental degradation.”

Joyce worked hard at her craft and it rewarded her soul in so many unconditional ways. Her energy for life and photography was full of unbridled enthusiasm. It is therefore a blessing that this passion has now found a permanent home: her complete photographic archive, the Joyce Evans Archive, is now housed at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, an institution for which she did much work over the years. And it is wonderful that they have staged this small exhibition of 27 of her photographs. My only quibble would be the lack of photographs of Indigenous Australians in the exhibition. Other than the portrait of Aboriginal activist Faith Bandler (1951, below) there are no other photographs of her immense engagement with Aboriginal communities and peoples in this exhibition – which is a great shame. Joyce was very proud of her photography of and relationship with remote Aboriginal communities and their people and it would have been nice to see that energy reflected in the photographs in this exhibition.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Joyce Evans was a cherished friend of Marcus Bunyan.

Many thankx to the National Library of Australia for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

The career of Joyce Evans OAM (1929-2019) spans more than six decades of landscape, documentary, and portrait photography. Her work is preserved through the Library’s Joyce Evans Archive, one of our largest collections of images by a contemporary Australian photographer, and contains images which capture essential aspects of Australian life.

“We believed we had an obligation, neither social nor political, to make a difference. We were brought up as children to believe that we had an obligation to make that difference.

If we can find out what we are… that is the artist. This goes to the core element of your being, and the core element of your enquiry remains the same.

If the core part of your life is the search for the truth then that becomes a core part of your identity for the rest of your life. It becomes embedded in your soul.”

Joyce Evans

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019) 'Richard 'Dicky' Woolcott, delegate to conference, at NUAUS encampment' 1951 from the exhibition 'Joyce Evans' at the National Library of Australia, April - Nov 2023

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Richard Woolcott AC at NUAUS Conference, Largs Bay, S.A.
1951, printed by David Chisolm and Joyce Evans, 2013
Photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Richard Arthur Woolcott AC (11 June 1927 – 2 February 2023) was an Australian public servant, diplomat, author, and commentator.

The [photographic] form that Joyce found so early in her life was the music and poetry of humanist photographs, images that are subjective, lyrical, and reveal a state-of-mind. Here is passion and belief in the life of human beings, and the exquisiteness, beauty (and death) of the lived moment. You could label them “social documentary photography” if you were so inclined, but labels don’t capture the frisson of the creative process nor the joyous outcome of Joyce’s portraits. It’s as though Joyce, in a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, is making love to the world through her images: neither rational nor cerebral they evoke sensations and feelings, of being here and there, in that past space and time, now, all these years later. These were epic days of change and transformation – of nations, of continents, of cultures and of people. There was death and destruction but there was also such happiness, hope and joy.

Further, what her photographs also depict is the rise of an informed Australian social consciousness after the Second World War. Her important historical and personal photographs shine a light on forgotten people, times, places and actions, such as the broad based youth movements opposition to the atomic bomb, associations and friendships which eventually form the basis for the progressive social and political protest movements of the 1960s. The voices raised later in support of feminism, gay liberation, free love and Vietnam anti-war protests did not appear fully formed, for there was a history of activism… a slow build, a groundswell of public opinion that was the basis for such emerging actions. Nothing ever emerges from nothing.

Marcus Bunyan. “Nothing emerges from nothing,” foreword from the book We Had Such High Hopes: Student Activism and the Peace Movement 1949-1952, A Photographic Memoir by Joyce Evans. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019) 'Faith Bandler' 1951 from the exhibition 'Joyce Evans' at the National Library of Australia, April - Nov 2023

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Faith Bandler
1951, printed 2012
Photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Faith Bandler AC MBE (27 September 1918 – 13 February 2015; née Ida Lessing Faith Mussing) was an Australian civil rights activist of South Sea Islander and Scottish-Indian heritage. A campaigner for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders, she was best known for her leadership in the campaign for the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal Australians.

‘I don’t know what sort of photographer I am, but I try to be an honest one.’ ~ Joyce Evans.

This collection-in-focus display contains highlights from the Library’s Joyce Evans Archive, and can be seen in our Treasures Gallery from Tuesday 4 April 2023. Entry to the Gallery is free and no bookings are required.

You can read more about Evans’ life in the NLA Publishing title, Joyce Evans by Sasha Grishin.

Text from the National Library of Australia website.

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Cotswold Farm, Menzies Creek, Victoria
1982
Colour photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Moon over Coober Pedy, South Australia
1988, printed by David Chisolm and Joyce Evans, 2013
Colour photograph
35.2 x 35cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Windmill on Weerewa/Lake George, New South Wales
c. 1983-2012
Colour photograph
35.6 x 37.2cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Desert Car on Gunbarrel Highway, Northern Territory
1991
Colour photograph
21 x 50.6cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Mud Football, Derby, Western Australia
2000, printed 2012
Inkjet on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper
34.3 x 41cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
The Big Galah and Tourist Gift Shop, Kimba, South Australia
c. 2006-2012
Colour photograph
33.6 x 50.7cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Gertrude, Boola Boolka Station, New South Wales
2006
Colour photograph
33.9 x 50.7cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Evidence of Severe Drought at Menindee Dam, Menindee, New South Wales
2006
Colour photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Uluru, Northern Territory
1987
Colour photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Joyce Evans was an unusual phenomenon in the Australian photography scene. Her conversion to photography did not occur until she was already in her 40s, while her engagement in professional photography had to wait until she was 50. She never developed a signature style, nor had she become a template photographer, but she possessed a definite photographic personality. …

As a documentary photographer, Evans considered herself a hunter and gatherer waiting to find the image. She remarked, “as an artist, you channel the energy of the place – the image comes to you as a gift.”

Her oeuvre is remarkable for its diversity and includes landscapes, roadkill, portraiture, social documentation, brothels and erotica – all brought together through a unifying sensibility, the Evans photographic moment. She was also an artist with a social conscience and pursued an agenda that shone a light on racism, social inequality and environmental degradation.

Many of Evans’s photographs demand slow viewing and open up gradually. Uluru, Northern Territory, 1987 (above), shows the rock as if carved by nature. In one sense, it is a very simple photograph in which two colours meet – the brilliant red ochre of the rock and the fathomless blue of the sky. It is also an immensely complex photograph with the mysterious slit – like the womb of the earth – in the centre of the composition and galvanising the viewer’s attention.

Gradually, as you focus into the image, there are signs of human presence at the top of the rock: two climbers on the chain pathway, contrasted with organic shapes created through centuries of erosion – a contrast between the temporal and the eternal. Despite the sense of stillness and silence, there is also considerable movement as the light plays over the textured surfaces.

The photograph is rare in that it defines a space but also distils the spiritual essence of the place and asserts an atmosphere of mystery and contemplative presence.

In 2016, when I was working on a monograph on Evans’s work, she noted: “As a photographer – I have a voice – it is an Australian voice, as I do not know intimately any other culture. It comes at a time when you say: ‘This is my country’. One of the sub-texts, when I pick up a camera, is that I always try to identify the stereotypical that is always defined by that which is on the edge.”

Sasha Grishin. “Joyce Evans, an unheralded icon of photography, the focus of the National Library of Australia,” on the Riotact website 8 October 2023 [Online] Cited 16/10/2023

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Barbara Blackman
1989
Photograph
30 x 40.7cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Barbara Blackman AO (née Patterson; born 22 December 1928) is an Australian writer, poet, librettist, broadcaster, model and patron of the arts. In 2004, she donated $1 million to a number of Australian music organisations, including Pro Musica, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian National University’s School of Music and the Stopera Chamber Opera Company. In 2006, she was awarded the Australian Contemporary Music Award for Patronage. Barbara Blackman was married for 27 years to renowned Australian artist Charles Blackman.

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Philanthropist Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Langwarrin, Victoria
1995
Photograph
24.9 x 37.0cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Dame Elisabeth Joy Murdoch, Lady Murdoch AC DBE (née Greene; 8 February 1909 – 5 December 2012), also known as Elisabeth, Lady Murdoch, was an Australian philanthropist and matriarch of the Murdoch family. She was the wife of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas.

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Bernard Smith, Victoria
2004, printed 2013
Colour photograph
47.5 x 37.5cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Bernard William Smith (3 October 1916 – 2 September 2011) was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic, considered the founding father of Australian art history, and one of the country’s most important thinkers. His book Place, Taste and Tradition: a Study of Australian Art Since 1788 (1945) is a key text in Australian art history, and influence on Robert Hughes. Smith was associated with the Communist Party of Australia, and after leaving the party remained a prominent left-wing intellectual and Marxist thinker.

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Stephen Dupont
2009, printed by David Chisolm and Joyce Evans, 2013
Photograph
35.6 x 35.6cm
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

Stephen Dupont (b. 1967) is an Australian photographer and director working on films, commercials, magazine and newspaper assignments and long term personal projects.

Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
William Yang
1996
Photograph
Joyce Evans Archive
National Library of Australia

“William Yang [Aust., b.1943] belongs to a generation of artists who used photography to document alternative lifestyles and celebrate social diversity during the latter decades of the 20th century…Yang is the type of social documentary photographer who carries a camera around his neck, ready to capture things with a certain immediacy, as they happen around him.” ~ Museum of Contemporary Art

Joyce Evans was an unusual phenomenon in the Australian photography scene. Her conversion to photography did not occur until she was already in her forties, while her engagement in professional photography had to wait until she was fifty. She never developed a signature style, nor did she become a template photographer, but she possessed a sensibility that has become characteristic of her work, so that you can quickly recognise a Joyce Evans photograph. She was an artist who possessed a definite photographic personality.

Evans combined documentary photography, social photography, landscape photography and studio practice. She also had a social conscience. Although avoiding didactic images or illustrative propaganda, in her documentary work and in her choice of subjects, she had pursued an agenda that shone a light on racism, social inequality and environmental degradation.

This stylish and generously-illustrated monograph shows how Evans’ photography was about capturing not only the surface appearances, but ultimately the essences, of her subjects. It illustrates the Evans’ belief that in silence and stillness you come to feel the spirit of the subject, and that capturing this spirit was the photographer’s goal.

About the author

Professor Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA established the academic discipline of Art History at the ANU and was the Sir William Dobell Professor of Art History and Head of Art History and Curatorship at the ANU until December 2013. He works internationally as an art historian, art critic and curator. In 2005 he was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for services to Australian art and art history. He has published over 25 books and over 2,000 articles and catalogue essays dealing with various aspects of art.

Text from the National Library of Australia website.

Purchase the book

Cover of the book Joyce Evans by Sasha Grishin

National Library of Australia
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National Library of Australia website

Photographs: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Aus der Traum (From the Dream)’ 2023

May 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Antonios Schneider' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Antonios Schneider
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.

And what did you want?
Too call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver. ‘Late Fragment’ from A New Path to the Waterfall, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989

This posting offers a selection of photographs from my new 269 image sequence Aus der Traum (From the Dream) (2023). To see the whole extended conversation please visit my website.

The starting point for this series was a black and white image from towards the end of the Second World War (when the Germans were obviously going to loose) of a German soldier looking at writing that has been scrawled in heavy chalk on the side of an armoured vehicle. ‘Aus der Traum’ translates as ‘From the Dream’.

As the series developed the work, as is its want, took on a life of its own. I use the photographs of war and its effects as part hallucinogenic, technicolour dream and part exploration “… not to follow optically the ‘line of ideas’ in the text or in a picture and see only the representation proper, the surface, but to probe with the eyes the pictorial texture and even to enter the texture.”1

Dr Marcus Bunyan

269 images
© Marcus Bunyan

View the whole sequence on my website (preferably on a desktop computer)

1/ Martin Jay. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. Berkley: University of California Press, 1993, p. 512.

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a digital colour 16″ x 20″ print costs $1,000 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see the Store web page.

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Tobacco' 2023 from the series 'Aus der Traum (From the Dream)' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Tobacco
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'City (destruction)' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
City (destruction)
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Destroyer' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Destroyer
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Emanation' 2023 from the series 'Aus der Traum (From the Dream)' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Emanation
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Flick' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Flick
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Goggles' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Goggles
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Gun' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Gun
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Helmet' 2023 from the series 'Aus der Traum (From the Dream)' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Helmet
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Katyusha' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Katyusha
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Men' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Men
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Prisoner' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Prisoner
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Aus der Traum' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Aus der Traum
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958). 'Trees' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Trees
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Water' 2023 from the series 'Aus der Traum (From the Dream)' 2023

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Water
From the series Aus der Traum (From the Dream)
2023
Digital photograph

Photographs: Marcus Bunyan. ‘The sun does not move’ 2017-2022

September 2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Women in orange' London 2017/2022 from the sequence 'The sun does not move' 2017-2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Women in orange
London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

This posting offers a selection of photographs from my new ninety-eight image sequence The sun does not move (2017-2022). To see the whole extended conversation please visit my website. The text below illuminates the rationale for the work…

Two students were arguing about a flag flapping in the wind. “It’s the wind that is really moving,” stated the first one. “No, it is the flag that is moving,” contended the second. A Zen master, who happened to be walking by, overheard the debate and interrupted them. “Neither the flag nor the wind is moving,” he said, “It is MIND that moves.”

The photographs in this sequence meditate on the idea that it is the mind of the viewer that constructs the spaces and meanings of these images. It is MIND that moves. The title of this sequence the sun does not move is attributed to Italian polymath Galileo Galilei.

The photographs are not a contemporary dissection of some archaic concept or hidden historical moment. They just are. Why do I make them? Because I feel impelled to be creative, to explore the spiritual in liminal spaces that I find across the earth. Ultimately, I make them for myself, to illuminate the journey that this soul is on.

With wonder and affection and empathy and feeling for the spaces placed before it. As clear as light is for the ‘mind’s eye’.

With thankx to the few “fellow travellers” for their advice and friendship.

Marcus Bunyan

98 images
© Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a digital colour 16″ x 20″ print costs $1,000 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see the Store web page.

View the whole sequence on my website (preferably on a desktop computer)

“To try to see more and better is not a matter of whim or curiosity or self-indulgence. To see or to perish is the very condition laid upon everything that makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious gift of existence.”

Teilhard de Chardin, Seeing 1947

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Brick pattern' London 2017/2022 from the sequence 'The sun does not move' 2017-2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Brick pattern
London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Sliver' France 2017/2022 from the sequence 'The sun does not move' 2017-2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Sliver
France 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Bus depot' South London 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Bus depot
South London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Gare du Nord' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Gare du Nord
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Blue / White' London 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Blue/White
London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Tomb effigy' V&A Museum, London 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Tomb effigy
V&A Museum, London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Float' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Float
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Scar' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Scar
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Circle, two white lines, four pieces of white and a trail of dark oil' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Circle, two white lines, four pieces of white and a trail of dark oil
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Couple in light' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Couple in light
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'The crossing' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The crossing
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Equilibrium' Tuileries, Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Equilibrium
Tuileries, Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Leaving' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Leaving
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'The sun does not move, it's your mind that moves...' France 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The sun does not move, it’s your mind that moves…
France 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Crystallize' France 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Crystallize
France 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Hand in hand' France 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Hand in hand
France 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'We might be otherwise – we might be all' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
We might be otherwise – we might be all
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Every kind of pleasure' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Every kind of pleasure
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Eiffel Tower II' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Eiffel Tower II
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Profusion' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Profusion
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Ancient and modern' V&A Museum, London 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Ancient and modern
V&A Museum, London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Two black holes' V&A Museum, London 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Two black holes
V&A Museum, London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'The Wheel of Time' V&A Museum, London 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The Wheel of Time
V&A Museum, London 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek (Shelley)' France 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek (Shelley)
France 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Modernisation' Montparnasse, Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Modernisation
Montparnasse, Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'The light whose smile kindles the universe' Palace of Fontainebleau, France 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The light whose smile kindles the universe
Palace of Fontainebleau, France 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'The unknown thought I' Paris 2017/2022

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The unknown thought I
Paris 2017
From the series The sun does not move 2017-2022
Digital colour photograph

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive: ‘Orphans and small groups’ 1994-1996 Part 2

April 2021

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Ma mère
1994
Gelatin silver print

Earlier in my life I believed that identity was always fluid, always in flux. These photographs reflect that belief.

Now as I get older, this belief has changed.

Identity is always steady – at a certain level – and that the old adage to know ones-self is still the greatest challenge. And that this knowledge brings a core that is consistent.

The fluidity of self-knowledge disappears when attention is sharpened.

Marcus Bunyan 2021

I am scanning my medium format Mamiya RZ67 negatives made during the years 1991-1997 to preserve them in the form of an online archive as a process of active memory, so that the images are not lost forever. These photographs were images of my life and imagination at the time of their making, the ideas I was thinking about and the people and things that surrounded me.

All images © Marcus Bunyan. Please click the photographs for a larger version of the image. Please remember these are straight scans of the prints, all full frame, no cropping !

Dr Marcus Bunyan

*PLEASE NOTE THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF MALE NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN*

Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a vintage 8″ x 10″ silver gelatin print costs $700 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (Rembrandt thinking)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The conversation
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (Pope folded)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (Pope unfolded)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan. 'The Angelus, New R, 1892' 1996

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The Angelus, New R, 1892
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Thy Kingdom Come
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Purity
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Whistler’s mother (looking out to sea)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Holbein’s Happiness
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan. 'Untitled (Sweet heart with leaves)' 1996

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (Sweet heart with leaves)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Windows at 63aa
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan. 'Urban abstraction (for Max)' 1995

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Urban abstraction (for Max)
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan. 'Between the breath and the silence' 1995

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Between the breath and the silence
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Shame Fraser
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Port Melbourne to Port of Melbourne
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Out back
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (pear on black)
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Pear I
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Pear II
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Abstract I
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Abstract II
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Nude in sunlight
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Abstract III
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Abstract IIII
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Abstract V
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Abstract VI
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Question mark
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Four lines and two trestles
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Four tyres
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (two cracks)
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (plank)
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (creature)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled (creatures)
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Roundel I
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Roundel II
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Roundel III
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Roundel IIII
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The structure and fabric of existence 1
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Passionfruit²
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
The structure and fabric of existence 2
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Williamstown 1
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Williamstown 2
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Williamstown 3
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Case Tractor – 1925 –
1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Fordson Tractor 1922
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Hart Parr
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
John Deere Tractor c. 1925
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Lanz Bulldog Tractor 1930
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
McCormick Deering Tractor c. 1928
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Fighter 1' 1994-1996

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Fighter 1
1994-96
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Fighter 2' 1994-1996

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Fighter 2
1994-96
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
“Boomerang Way” Tocumwal Wishing Well
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Australian landscape
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
A twist of the mind
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Australian landscape
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan. 'Two men and a ute' 1994-1995

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Two men and a ute
1994-95
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Plume (X marks the spot)
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Lumbe, Blacksmith, Undertaker
1995
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive 1991-1997

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive: ‘Orphans and small groups’ 1994-1996 Part 1

February 2021

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Tall Bamboo
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

I am scanning my negatives made during the years 1991-1997 to preserve them in the form of an online archive as a process of active memory, so that the images are not lost forever. These photographs were images of my life and imagination at the time of their making, the ideas I was thinking about and the people and things that surrounded me.

All images © Marcus Bunyan. Please click the photographs for a larger version of the image. Please remember these are just straight scans of the prints, all full frame, no cropping !

Marcus

Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a vintage 8″ x 10″ silver gelatin print costs $700 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Baby, Oslo
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Barrows
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Bellows
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Bonsai
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Bricks and cups
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cabbage
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Children and flowers

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Children and flowers I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Children and flowers II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Children and flowers III
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Children and flowers IV
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

______________________________

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Corrugations I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Corrugations II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Corrugations III
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Corrugations IV
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Crazy paving
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Marguerite Daisy I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Marguerite Daisy II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

______________________________

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Doll face I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Doll face II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Drainpipe I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Drainpipe II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Face I (William Klein)
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Face II (William Klein)
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Gate I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Gate II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Chalice I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Chalice II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Chalice III
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cracked
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Gumnuts
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Hat I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Hat II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Helicopter, flag pole and sun
1994-96
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
If?
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Jubilee Street, Melbourne
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Kids horse I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Kids horse II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Monster
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Marquetry
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Saint Gregory I
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Saint Gregory II
1994-1996
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Saint Gregory III
1994-96
Gelatin silver print

Melbourne gay pride 1994

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Body painting, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
James Dean, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Banquet table, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Eagle brand, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Pentagram, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Love, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Dragons wing, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Rose Kennedy, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Om, Melbourne gay pride
1994
Gelatin silver print

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive 1991-1997

Text and photos: Marcus Bunyan. “Punk jacket,” in Chris Brickell and Judith Collard (eds.,). ‘Queer Objects’ MUP, 2019

October 2019

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Self-portrait with punk jacket and The Jesus and Mary Chain T-shirt' 1992 from Marcus Bunyan. "Punk jacket," in Chris Brickell and Judith Collard (eds.,). 'Queer Objects' MUP, 2019

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Self-portrait with punk jacket and The Jesus and Mary Chain T-shirt
1992
Gelatin silver print
© Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to University of Otago academics Chris Brickell and Judith Collard for inviting me to write a chapter for this important book… about my glorious punk jacket of the late 1980s (with HIV/AIDS pink triangle c. 1989). Aaah, the memories!

Please come along to the Australian launch of the book at Hares Hyenas bookshop (63 Johnston Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne) on Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at 6pm – 7.30pm. The book is to be launched by Jason Smith (Director Geelong Gallery). Click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Marcus

“Gay and lesbian identity (and, by extension, queer identity) is predicated on the idea that, as sexualities, they are invisible, because sexuality is not a visible identity in the ways that race or sex are visible. Only by means of individual expression are gay and lesbian sexualities made discernible.”

Ari Hakkarainen. “‘The Urgency of Resistance’: Rehearsals of Death in the Photography of David Wojnarowicz” 2018

Punk Jacket

I arrived in Melbourne in August 1986 after living and partying in London for 11 years. I had fallen in love with an Australian skinhead boy in 1985. After we had been together for a year and a half together his visa was going to expire and he had to leave Britain to avoid deportation. So I gave up my job, packed up my belongings and went to Australia. All for love.

We landed in Melbourne after a 23-hour flight and I was driven down Swanston Street, the main drag (which in those days was open to traffic) and I was told this was it; this was the centre of the city. Bought at a milk bar, the Australian version of the corner shop, the first thing I ever ate in this new land was a Violet Crumble, the Oz equivalent of a Crunchie. Everything was so strange: the light, the sounds, the countryside.

I felt alienated. My partner had all his friends and I was in a strange land on my own. I was homesick but stuck it out. As you could in those days, I applied for gay de facto partnership status and got my permanent residency. But it did not last and we parted ways. Strange to say, though, I did not go back to England: there was an opportunity for a better life in Australia. I began a photography course and then went to university. I became an artist, which I have now been for over 30 years.

Melbourne was totally different then from the international city of today: no café culture, no big events, no shopping on Sundays, everything shut down early. At first living there was a real culture shock. I was the only gay man in town who had tattoos and a shaved head, who wore Fred Perrys, braces and Doc Martens. All the other gay men seemed to be stuck in the New Romantics era. In 1988 I walked into the Xchange Hotel on Commercial Road, then one of the pubs on the city’s main gay drag, and said to the manager, Craig, ‘I’m hungry, I’m starving, give me a job’, or words to that effect. He thought a straight skinhead had come to rob the place, but he gave me a job, sweet man. He later died of AIDS.

I went to my first Mardi Gras in Sydney the same year, when the party after the parade was in the one pavilion, the Horden at the showgrounds, and there were only 3000 people there. I loved it. Two men, both artists who lived out in Newtown, picked me up and I spent the rest of the weekend with them, having a fine old time. I still have the gift Ian gave me from his company, Riffin Drill, the name scratched on the back of the brass belt buckle that was his present. I returned the next year and the party was bigger. I ventured out to Newtown during the day, when the area was a haven for alternatives, punks and deviants (not like it is now, all gentrified and bland) and found an old second-hand shop quite a way up from the train station. And there was the leather jacket, unadorned save for the red lapels. It fitted like a glove. Somehow it made its way back with me to Melbourne. Surprise, surprise!

Then I started making the jacket my own. Studs were added to the red of the lapel and to the lower tail at the back of the jacket with my initials MAB (or MAD as I frequently referred to myself) as part of the design. A large, Gothic Alchemy patch with dragon and cross surrounded by hand-painted designs by my best mate and artist, Frederick White, finished the back of the jacket. Slogans such as ‘One Way System,’ ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours!’ and ‘Anarchy’ were stencilled to both arms and the front of the jacket; cloth patches were pinned or studded to the front and sides: Doc Martens, Union Jack, Southern Cross … and Greenpeace. I added metal badges from the leather bar, The Gauntlet, and a British Skins badge with a Union Jack had pride of place on the red lapel. And then there was one very special homemade badge. Made out of a bit of strong fabric and coloured using felt-tip pens, it was attached with safety pins to the left arm. It was, and still is, a pink triangle. And in grey capital letters written in my own hand, it says, using the words of the Latin proverb, ‘SILENCE IS THE VOICE OF COMPLICITY’.

I have been unable to find this slogan anywhere else in HIV/AIDS material, but that is not to say it has not been used. This was my take on the Silence = Death Collective’s protest poster of a pink triangle with those same words, ‘Silence = Death’ underneath, one of the most iconic and lasting images that would come to symbolise the Aids activist movement. Avram Finkelstein, a member of the collective who designed the poster, comments eloquently on the weight of the meaning of ‘silence’: ‘Institutionally, silence is about control. Personally, silence is about complicity.’1 In a strange synchronicity, in 1989 I inverted the pink triangle of the ‘Silence = Death’ poster so that it resembled the pink triangle used to identify gay (male) prisoners sent to Nazi concentration camps because of their homosexuality; the Pink Triangles were considered the ‘lowest’ and ‘most insignificant’ prisoners. It is estimated that the Nazis killed up to 15,000 homosexuals in concentration camps. Only in 2018, when writing this piece, did I learn that Avram Finkelstein was a Jew. He relates both variants of the pink triangle to complicity because ‘when you see something happening and you are silent, you are participating in it, whether you want to or not, whether you know it or not’.2

Finishing the jacket was a labour of love that took several years to reach its final state of being. I usually wore it with my brown, moth-eaten punk jumper, bought off a friend who found it behind a concert stage. Chains and an eagle adorned the front of it, with safety pins holding it all together. On the back was a swastika made out of safety pins, to which I promptly added the word ‘No’ above the symbol, using more safety pins, making my political and social allegiances very clear. Both the jumper and the jacket have both been donated to the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

By 1993 I had a new boyfriend and was at the beginning of a 12-year relationship that would be the longest of my life. We were both into skinhead and punk gear, my partner having studied fashion design with Vivienne Westwood in London. We used to walk around Melbourne dressed up in our gear, including the jacket, holding hands on trams and trains, on the bus and in the street. Australia was then such a conservative country, even in the populated cities, and our undoubtedly provocative actions challenged prevailing stereotypes of masculinity. We wore our SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) T-shirts with pride and opposed any form of racism, particularly from neo-fascists.3

Why did we like the punk and skinhead look so much? For me, it had links to my working-class roots growing up in Britain. I liked the butch masculinity of the shaved head and the Mohawk, the tattoos, braces, Docs and Perrys – but I hated the racist politics of straight skinheads. ‘SHARPs draw inspiration from the biracial origins of the skinhead subculture … [they] dress to project an image that looks hard and smart, in an evolving continuity with style ideals established in the middle-to-late 1960s. They remain true to the style’s original purpose of enjoying life, clothes, attitude and music. This does not include blanket hatred of other people based on their skin colour.’4

By the very fact of being a ‘gay’ punk and skinhead, too, I was effectively subverting the status quo: the hetero-normative, white patriarchal society much in evidence in Australia at the time. I was subverting a stereotypical masculinity, that of the straight skinhead, by turning it ‘queer’. Murray Healy’s excellent book, Gay Skins: Class, Masculinity and Queer Appropriation, was critical to my understanding of what I was doing intuitively. Healy looks into the myths and misapprehensions surrounding gay skins by exploring fascism, fetishism, class, sexuality and gender. Queer undercurrents ran through skinhead culture, and shaven heads, shiny DMs and tight Levis fed into fantasies and fetishes based on notions of hyper-masculinity. But Healy puts the boot into those myths of masculinity and challenges assumptions about class, queerness and real men. Tracing the historical development of the gay skin from 1968, he assesses what gay men have done to the hardest cult of them all. He asks how they transformed the gay scene in Britain and then around the world, and observes that the ‘previously sublimated queerness of working class youth culture was aggressively foregrounded in punk. Punk harnessed the energies of an underclass dissatisfied with a sanitised consumer youth culture, and it was from the realm of dangerous sexualities that it appropriated its shocking signifiers.’5 There is now a whole cult of gay men who like nothing better than displaying their transformative sexuality by shaving their heads and putting on their Docs to go down the pub for a few drinks. Supposedly as hard as nails and as gay as fuck, the look is more than a costume, as much leatherwear has become in recent years: it is a spiritual attitude and a way of life. It can also signify a vulnerable persona open to connection, passion, tenderness and togetherness.

In 1992 I took this spiritual belonging to a tribe to a new level. For years I had suffered from depression and self-harm, cutting my arms with razor blades. Now, in an act of positive energy and self-healing, skinhead friend Glenn performed three and a half hours of cutting on my right arm as a form of tribal scarification. There was no pain: I divorced my mind from my body and went on a journey, a form of astral travel. It was the most spiritual experience of my life. Afterwards we both needed a drink, so we put on our gear and went down to the Exchange Hotel on Oxford Street in Sydney with blood still coming from my arm. I know the queens were shocked – the looks we got reflected, in part, what blood meant to the gay community in that era – but this is who I then was. The black and white photograph in this chapter (below) was taken a day later. Paraphrasing Leonard Peltier, I was letting who I was ring out and resonate in every deed. I was taking responsibility for my own being. From that day to this, I have never cut myself again.

These tribal belongings and deviant sexualities speak of a desire to explore the self and the world. They cross the prohibition of the taboo by subverting gender norms through a paradoxical masculinity that ironically eroticises the desire for traditional masculinity. As Brian Pronger observes,

“Paradoxical masculinity takes the traditional signs of patriarchal masculinity and filters them through an ironic gay lens. Signs such as muscles [and gay skinheads], which in heterosexual culture highlight masculine gender by pointing out the power men have over women and the power they have to resist other men, through gay irony emerge as enticements to homoerotic desire – a desire that is anathema to orthodox masculinity. Paradoxical masculinity invites both reverence for the traditional signs of masculinity and the violation of those signs.”6

Violation is critical here. Through violation gay men are brought closer to a physical and mental eroticism. I remember going to dance parties with my partner and holding each other at arm’s length on the pumping dance floor, rubbing our shaved heads together for what seemed like minutes on end among the sweaty crowd, and being transported to another world. I lost myself in another place of ecstatic existence. Wearing my punk jacket, being a gay skinhead and exploring different pleasures always took me out of myself into another realm – a sensitive gay man who belonged to a tribe that was as sexy and deviant as fuck.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Marcus Bunyan. “Punk Jacket,” in Chris Brickell and Judith Collard (eds.,). Queer Objects. Manchester University Press, 2019, pp. 342-349.

Word count: 2,055

Endnotes

1/ Anonymous. ‘The Artist Behind the Iconic Silence = Death Image’, University of California Press Blog, 1 June 2017 [Online] Cited 30th October 2019. No longer available online

2/ Silence Opens Door, ‘Avram Finkelstein: Silence=Death,’ YouTube, 4 March 2010: https://youtu.be/7tCN9YdMRiA

3/ Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice was started in 1987 in New York as a response to the bigotry of the growing white power movement in 1982

4/ Anonymous, ‘Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinheads_Against_Racial_Prejudice

5/ Murray Healy, Gay Skins: Class, masculinity and queer appropriation (London: Cassell, 1996), p. 397

6/ Brian Pronger, The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, homosexuality, and the meaning of sex (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1990), p. 145

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Punk Jacket' c. 1989-1991

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Punk Jacket' c. 1989-1991 (detail)

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Punk Jacket
c. 1989-1991
Mixed media
Collection of the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (ALGA)
© Marcus Bunyan and ALGA

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Self-portrait with punk jacket, flanny and 14 hole steel toe capped Docs
1991
Gelatin silver print
© Marcus Bunyan

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Marcus (after scarification), Sydney' 1992

Other Marcus photographs in the Queer Objects book

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Two torsos' 1991

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Fred and Andrew, Sherbrooke Forest, Victoria
1992
Gelatin silver print
© Marcus Bunyan

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive

LIKE ART BLACK ON FACEBOOK

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive page

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive: ‘Études’ 1994

November 2016

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Untitled' from the series 'Études' 1994

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1994
from the series Études
Silver gelatin print

Studies taken at Newport railway workshops, Melbourne in 1994 with my Mamiya RZ67.

Please remember these are just straight scans of the prints, all full frame, no cropping!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a vintage 8″ x 10″ silver gelatin print costs $700 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
1994
from the series Études
Silver gelatin print

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Jim Black, artist' from the series 'Études' 1994

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Jim Black, artist
1994
from the series Études
Silver gelatin print