New website: Marcus Bunyan – celebrating 30 years of art practice in 2021

November 2021

Celebration!

Recent work

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2021
From the series Resonance

In 2021, I celebrate 30 years of art practice with the creation of a new website, the first to contain all my bodies of work since 1991 (note: more bodies of work still have to be added between 1996-1999).

My first solo exhibition was in a hair dressing salon in High Street, Prahran, Melbourne in 1991, during my second year of a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art Photography) at RMIT University (formerly Phillip Institute out in Bundoora). Titled Of Magic, Music and Myth it featured black and white medium format photographs of the derelict Regent Theatre and the old Victorian Railway’s Newport Workshops.

The concerns that I had at the time in my art making have remained with me to this day: that is, an investigation into the boundaries between identity, space and environment. Music and “spirit” have always been an abiding influence – the intrinsic music of the world and the spirit of objects, nature, people and the cosmos … in a continuing exploration of spaces and places, using found images and digital and film cameras to record glances, meditations and movement through different environments.

30 years after I started I hope I have learnt a lot about image making … and a lot about myself. I also hope the early bodies of my work are still as valid now as they were when I made them. In the 30 years since I became an artist my concerns have remained constant but as well, my sense of exploration and joy at being creative remains undimmed and an abiding passion.

Now, with ego integrated and the marching of the years I just make art for myself, yes, but the best reason to make art is … for love and for the cosmos. For I believe any energy that we give out to the great beyond is recognised by spirit. Success is fleeting but making art gives energy to creation. We all return to the great beyond, eventually.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Each photograph in this posting links to a different body of work on my new website. Please click on the photographs to see the work.

Unknown photographer
Opening of Marcus Bunyan’s exhibition The Naked Man Fears No Pickpockets at The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop, Melbourne, 1993 showing at left (behind the crowd) the photograph Richmond Steps 1993
1993
Polaroid

Ian Lobb (Australian, b. 1948)
Marcus 31/8/92 Taken by Ian Lobb at Phillip [Institute]
1992
Polaroid

Jeff Whitehead (Australian)
Marcus in his Fred Perry and Doc Martens with his Mamiya RZ67 on tripod with Pelican case on Jeff’s car, Studley Park, Melbourne
1991-1992
Colour photograph

The only photograph of me with my camera 30 years ago!

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2017-2020
From the series Stones, Vaults, Flowers: Père Lachaise

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2019-2020
From the series A Day in the Tiergarten

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2019
From the series The Night Journey

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2019
From the series Oblique

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Parc de Sceaux
2018
From the series Paris in film

War dreams 2007-2017

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2013-2017
From the series The Shape of Dreams

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2015
From the series Too Much of the Air

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2013
From the series upside down

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2011
From the series Vertical

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2011
From the series The Symbolic Order (cartes de visite)

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2010
From the series Missing in Action (red kenosis)

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2010
From the series Missing in Action (dark kenosis)

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2010
From the series Missing in Action (horizontal kenosis)

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2009
From the series There but for the Grace of You Go I

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2009
From the series The Shape of Dreams

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2009
From the series Momentum

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2008
From the series Cut and Thrust

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2007
From the series Drone

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2007
From the series Nebula

Transformations 1996-2008

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2008
From the series Discarded Views

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2008
From the series Last Stand

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2007
From the series Wonders Never Cease

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2007
From the series Unearth

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2006
From the series Aporia

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2005
From the series Photos My Mother Sent Me

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2005
From the series No Man’s Land

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2005
From the series Tokern

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2005
From the series Inurtia

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
VV – 09GI and NV – 17EP during a thunderstorm, Albury
2005
From the series Enclosure

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Bedtime
2004
From the series Neo_mort

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2003
From the series Desideratum

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2002
From the series Last Days at Karngara

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2001
From the series The Wrestlers

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Button 2B
2001
From the series D O < R >

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Plane 6
2001
From the series Throw High and Hard

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled
2000
From the series Thirdspace

Black and white archive 1991-1997

PLEASE VIEW THE BLACK AND WHITE ARCHIVE POSTINGS

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, born England 1958) ‘Untitled’ from the series ‘Sleep/Wound’ 1995-96

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Mask IV’ 1995 from the series ‘Mask’ 1995-1996

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Medieval tiles’ 1994 from the series ‘Orphans and small groups’ 1994-1996

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, born England 1958) ‘Padlocks/People’ 1995-96

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Dalmation’ from ‘Dogs, chickens, cattle and cows’ 1994-1995

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Mother, foal’ from the series ‘Horses, sheep’ 1994-95

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

Marcus Bunyan. ‘The Songs of Eternity’ 1994

Marcus Bunyan. ‘The wash house’ from the series ‘Immersion’ 1994

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Untitled’ from the series ‘Ignudi’ 1994

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Jerry holding a brush, South Yarra’ 1994 from the series ‘South Yarra and surrounds’ 1994

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Maman’ 1993 from the series ‘England’ 1993

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Manchester Mardi Gras’ 1993 from the series ‘England’ 1993

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Paul, Windsor and the city’ 1992-94 from the series ‘Circumnavigation’ 1992-1994

Marcus Bunyan. ‘The face of man, in the surface of Moon, blinks’ 1992-94 from the series ‘Within’ 1992-1994

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Two male torsos’ 1991 from the series ‘Objects, cars and places’ 1991-1992

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Self-portrait in Punk Jacket’ 1991-1992 from the series ‘Self-portraits and nudes’ 1991-1992

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Andy in the flat, Punt Road, South Yarra' 1991-1992

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Forms IV’ from the ‘At Newport’ series, 1991

Marcus Bunyan. ‘Nocturne’ from ‘The Regent Theatre’ series 1991

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive 1991-1997

PLEASE VIEW THE BLACK AND WHITE ARCHIVE POSTINGS

Marcus Bunyan website

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Photographs: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Oblique’ 2019

March 2019

Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958)
Untitled
2019
From the series Oblique
Digital colour photograph

Here is a body of work shot mainly from moving taxi windows in Bangkok and surrounds, interspersed with still, Zen-like images.

With the moving images, you have to anticipate by a couple of seconds the movement of the taxi and the release of the shutter so you have no idea what the image will actually be. Your sense of previsualisation is completed on feel and instinct. You trust the world to provide the image which you are looking for. I enjoy them, they give me pleasure and contentment in their creation.

Oblique

In terms of defining the concept of the oblique we can say that: “The oblique is fundamentally interested in how a body physically experiences a space.”

In this case, both physically and spiritually.

The series investigates the concept through images of movement and stillness, fleeting glimpses of urban life intertwined with Zen-like images. The series is constructed not as a sequence, but as a “volume” where there is no beginning, no middle and no end. It is like a jewel that can be turned around and looked at from different perspectives, where no one perspective is the correct interpretation. Each volume has its own validity, its own uniqueness.

The images can also be read as a protest against death – no beginning, no middle, no end – where everything is connected to everything else. As Goethe observes in his Conversations with Eckermarm (5 June 1825):

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it, and over it.”

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please note: the series is best viewed on a desktop computer with a large screen. Please click on the photographs to see a larger version of the image.

PLEASE VIEW THE WHOLE SERIES ON MY WEBSITE