Devonport Regional Art Gallery: ReViewing

Star Theatre, Stewart Street Devonport, 1937, The Robinson Collection, Devonport City Council Permanent Collection, Scanned from the original glass plate negative

13 March – 10 May, 2015
Opening Thursday 12 March, 6 pm
In Conversation with the Curators: Saturday 14 March, 12 pm

CURATORS: Dr Ellie Ray and Dunja Rmandic
ARTISTS: Lisa Garland, Troy Ruffels, Ilona Schneider, Brian Sollors, the Robinson Studio

For the exhibition ReViewing, presented as part of the Tasmanian International Arts Festival 2015, four contemporary photo-media artists have been invited to create new work from their impressions of the people and places in the NW region of Tasmania. In creating their work, the artists have referenced the photographic archives of the Robinson family business. The Robinson Collection of photographic negatives is owned by the Devonport City Council and managed by the Devonport Regional Gallery. The Collection consists of over 70,000 negatives made by Bert Robinson and his son Albert between 1927 and the mid-1970s.

Images from the Robinson Collection that have informed the artists’ series of work will be printed from the original negatives and displayed in the exhibition alongside the new works from these four contemporary photo-media artists.

Foregrounding the sphere of photography from analogue to digital, documentary and social history to fine art, ReViewing provides the viewer with points of entry into both early photographic imagery and contemporary photographic perspectives.

The artists have each chosen a different approach to making their work: Schneider looks behind the scenes of Devonport facades while Sollors explores the local industrial infrastructure. Garland grants us an insight into private, domestic spaces and their owners’ possessions and Ruffels presents us with the inevitable physical deterioration of a photographic collection, which can be considered both aesthetically beautiful and existentially challenging.
Ellie Ray, Tracy Broomhall Devonport Regional Gallery