Resonancenoun: the power to bring images, feelings, etc. into the mind of the person reading or listening; the images, etc. produced in this way…
A body of work for 2021. Very proud of this sequence…
Taken in heavy overcast conditions with slight rain after a thunderstorm had passed through on my Mamiya RZ67 medium format film camera, at Eagle’s Nest, Bunurong Marine and Coastal Park, Victoria, Australia.
A period of intense seeing and previsualisation.
No cropping, all full frame photographs. The colours are as the camera saw them.
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.
*PLEASE NOTE THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF MALE NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN*
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.
Thoreau, Walden
The series Sleep/Wound appeared in my solo exhibition titled The Cleft in Words, The Words As Flesh, at Stop 22 Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne in 1996.
The series consists of ethereal, intimate photographs of my partner and myself in sleep positions, taken on infra-red film, the only time I ever used such film. I was fascinated (and still am) with the positions of the body in space, and how it moves in different environments.
The second part of the series are photographs of a performance, that of the cutting of my partners back. Paul and I held a dance party at a house on Punt Road in South Yarra where our friend Woody (David J. Wood of Bent Metal fame) was being evicted. The party, naturally enough called Eviction, was held to raise money for HIV/AIDS. Paul and I decorated the house, painting large, colourful kundalini symbols such as snakes and mandalas on the walls. In one room, painted with the seven colours of the main chakras, and to ambient music connected to earth, spirit and cosmos – I cut my partners back. Half the people fled, but the other half recognised the powerful spiritual connection that was happening in the performance (remember at this time, blood in terms of being gay, was tainted because of HIV/AIDS infection). I then smeared Paul’s blood on the walls of the house with my hands, crossing the boundary of the taboo by touching a bodily fluid whist acknowledging something that is essential to human life.
After packing up all the equipment from the party, we both headed to the Tasty nightclub (if any of you remember the Tasty raid) to have a good dance, with the blood still drying on Paul’s back. People were shocked at seeing his cut back. When we got back home at 6am in the morning I took out my trusty Mamiya RZ67 and took these beautiful photographs of one of the most connected, spiritual experiences of my life.
My thankx go to Paul as always for being my muse and partner without whom these experiences and photographs would never have been possible.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
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.
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 born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958) Untitled 1995-1996 From the series Sleep/Wound Gelatin silver print
After undertaking an Issues in Art Conservation subject for my Master of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne I have become more aware of the fragility of my black and white fibre-based prints and negatives. I have therefore decided to scan my medium format negatives (taken on my trusty Mamiya RZ67) and 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 that surrounded me. As such they form part of life – of Melbourne, of Australia and of humanity in general. The preservation of such moments in time are vital to the continuing enrichment of culture. See more of my early black and white photographs on the Marcus Bunyan black and white archive 1991-1997 page.
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.
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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