Bronwyn Rennex
"In my most recent body of work small fires, I used one of the oldest photographic techniques, the cyanotype, to give voice to contemporary concerns. The literal shadow, captured in the cyanotype process, is turned into a figurative shadow - a suggestion of the unconscious and unspoken. Difficulties and confusions are made explicit. Gentle tendrils of grapevine speak out 'thanks for nothing' or 'no no no'. The words are plaintive, confusing and fallible. There is a tension in the works, as the title of the series suggests, small fires can become big fires or they can go out. They are small and intense – dangerous yet fragile.
My 2001 series Always Hungry was strange, poetic and comic. It focused on appetite as a state of yearning, as a condition, a perpetual cycle, as the engine driving consumption, in a culture of accelerating consumption. Underlying the work is a knowing sadness that affectionately pokes fun at our Always Hungry condition. We turn away from the proximity of our lives, populated as they are with the objects of our desire, the weary products of our searching for satisfaction, and look up to the sky. We look up and we see one word written in giant letters: ME.
While I rarely take portraits, I like photographing kids. I like the way that their realities are a bit slipperier than those of adults. With my portraits of Stella (my daughter) I feel I have captured something of her dark humour. They’re funny but also a little sinister. The way that kids make themselves something else in front of the camera is similar to what we do as adults - only less subtle (and we usually try to improve on what we have). Kids understand the ability of the camera to transform someone or something into something else.
(Bronwyn Rennex 2006)
