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
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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 black and white archive 1991-1997
PLEASE VIEW THE BLACK AND WHITE ARCHIVE POSTINGS
Photograph: The Passing of Memory: resurrecting a photograph for the series ‘The Shape of Dreams’
Tags: 1950s, Australian artist, Australian photographer, Australian photography, Australian writing, black and white photograph, bracketing of time, choosing to forget, collective resonance, harmonic lines, His brilliant face is our brilliant face, image and shadow, lost in passing, making the image conscious, Marcus Bunyan, Marcus Bunyan The Shape of Dreams, memories, memory, Monumental Past, Monumental Past: The Life-histories of Megalithic Monuments, passing, past and present, presence in images, Regarding the Pain of Others, remembering, remembering is a voluntary act, remembering is an ethical act, social memory, space, Susan Sontag, Susan Sontag Regarding the Pain of Others, The form of formlessness The shape of dreams, the individual as collective, The Passing of Memory, The Passing of Memory: resurrecting a photograph, the shape of dreams, time, we can choose not to remember., we can choose to forget
March 2009
Marcus Bunyan (Australian born England, b. 1958)
Oakland, 7-’51 from the series The Shape of Dreams (restored)
2009
The Passing of Memory
Thinking about this photograph
I bought an album on Ebay that contained an anonymous aviator with snapshots of his life: photographs of him in Oakland, California, Cologne in Germany and flying out of Italy – photos of his buddies and the work they did, the places they visited, the fun they had.
This one photograph has haunted me more than the rest.
Who was he? What was his life like? Do he get married and have children? Is he still alive?
When scanned the image was so dirty, so degraded, that I spent 7 weeks of my life cleaning and restoring the photograph working all hours of the day and night. I was obsessive almost to the point of obstinacy. Many times I nearly gave up as I thought the task impossible – thousands of dots and hairs inhabited the surface of the image and, surely, it was just another photograph one of millions that circle the world. Why expend so much energy just to resurrect this one particular image?
Some things that can be said about this photograph
It is small measuring only 9cm high by 7.5 cm wide
It is printed on cheap glossy photographic paper which now has a slight yellow tinge to it.
The image is creased at top left.
The back is annotated ‘Oakland, 7-’51’
The dark roundel with the wing on the side of the aircraft has faint text that spells out the words ‘AERO ACE’.
There is no engine in the aircraft and it looks from the parts lying on the ground that the aircraft is being broken up or used for spares.
The man is wearing work overalls with unidentifiable insignia on them, a worker on the aircraft being dismantled or just a fitter on the base.
Someone standing on the ground has obviously called out the man’s name and he has turned around in response to the call and lent forward and put out his hand in greeting – a beautiful spontaneous response – and the photograph has been taken.
Some other things that can be said about this photograph, in passing
The sun splashes the man’s face. He smiles at the camera.
His arm rests gently on the metal of the aircraft, shielded from the sun.
Perhaps he wears a ring on his fifth finger.
He is blind.
This photograph is an individual, isolated note in the fabric of time. It could easily pass into silence as memory and image fade from view. Memories of the individual form the basis for remembering and photographs act as an aide-memoire both for individual memory and the collective memory that flows from individual memory. Memory is always and only partial and fragmentary – who is remembering, what are they remembering, when do they remember, what prompts them to remember and how these memories are incorporated into the collective memory, an always mediated phenomenon that manifests itself in the actions and statements of individuals, are important questions.
Images are able to trigger memories and emotional responses to a particular time and place, but since this photograph has no personal significance what is going on here? Why did I cry when I was restoring it? What emotional association was happening inside me?
“To remember is always to give a reading of the past, a reading which requires linguistic skills derived from the traditions of explanation and story-telling within a culture and which [presents] issues in a narrative that owes its meaning ultimately to the interpretative practices of a community of speakers. This is true even when what is remembered is one’s own past experience… [The] mental image of the past … becomes a phenomenon of consciousness only when clothed with words, and these owe their meaning to social practices of communication.”2
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His blindness stares at us while underneath his body walks away into his passing.
I have become the speaker for this man, for this image.
His brilliant face is our brilliant face.
In this speaking, the phenomenon of making the image conscious, the gap between image and presence, between the photo and its shadow has collapsed. There is no past and present but a collective resonance that has presence in images.
“Such reasoning questions the separation of past and present in a fundamental way. As a consequence it becomes fruitless to discuss whether or not a particular event or process remembered corresponds to the actual past: all that matters are the specific conditions under which such memory is constructed as well as the personal and social implications of memories held.”3
‘The personal and social implications of memories held’. Or not held, if images are lost in passing.
It is such a joyous image, the uplifted hand almost in supplication. I feel strong connection to this man. I bring his presence into consciousness in my life, and by my thinking into the collective memory. Perhaps the emotional response is that as I get older photographs of youth remind me of the passing of time more strongly. Perhaps the image reminds me of the smiling father I never had. These are not projections of my own feelings but resonances held in the collective memory.
As Susan Sontag has observed,
“Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the normal course of things die before us – grandparents, parents, teachers and older friends.”4
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Remembering is an ethical act. It is also a voluntary act. We can choose not to remember. We can choose to forget. In this photograph I choose to remember, to not let pass into the dark night of the soul. My mind, eyes and heart are open.
This is not a simulacra of an original image but an adaptation, an adaptation that tries to find resonances between past and present, between image and shadow. As such this photograph is no longer an isolated tone that inevitably lapses back into silence but part of a bracketing of time that is convulsingly beautiful in it’s illumination, it’s presence. The individual as collective, collected memory present for all to see.
The form of formlessness, the shape of dreams.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
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