MCA Museum of Contemporary Art

South Of No North

05 Jul 2013 - 09 Mar 2014

SOUTH OF NO NORTH
Laurence Aberhart, William Eggleston, Noel Mckenna on Tour

5 July 2013 - 9 March 2014

Curator: Glenn Barkley

South of no North: Laurence Aberhart, William Eggleston, Noel McKenna presents three artists whose works are connected by an interest in the vernacular, a regional sense of place and a similar visual sensibility.

Australian artist Noel McKenna has lived and worked in Sydney since moving from Brisbane in 1981. He has chronicled the city and its people whilst travelling extensively, particularly in New Zealand and Europe. McKenna’S paintings and ceramics are shown alongside the work of two photographers. The enormously influential American photographer William Eggleston lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee, deep in the American south, and works exclusively with colour photography. New Zealander Laurence Aberhart resides in Russell on the North Island of New Zealand, works predominantly with black and white photography and has photographed environments in NZ and Australia, Hong Kong, France, Antarctica and the USA.

All three artists have a common literary sensibility that captures details of the built environment and human interactions that have their own particular pathos. They tend to work on a small scale and their works provide a window onto the world where you really have to look. You are drawn in rather than overwhelmed, peering into places and moments now past.

Their artworks are akin to short stories where emotions and narratives are condensed into rich and provocative sensations reflecting the everyday world and making manifest the power of art to alert us to the wonder and poetry that is all around us.
 

Tags: Laurence Aberhart, William Eggleston, Noel McKenna