ArtSpace Realm, Melbourne/Naarm

18 November 2024- 26 January 2025

This exhibition brings together recent bodies of work bycelebrated Australian artist Morganna Magee: extraordinary
experiences (2020-ongoing), Beware of people who dislike
cats (2023) and The Paddocks (2024-ongoing). These series respond to the notion of encounters – encounters between humans and animals, and the ways in which humans connect with each other and the natural world. For Magee, this connection is based on a deep care and respect for the people, animals and places she photographs.

Many of Magee’s photographs are taken on journeys in nature, where subjects reveal themselves to her. She intuitively responds with her camera. Magee never uses a long lens and instead the photographs are based on physical closeness. The results are tender, intimate and considered studies of her surroundings that portray Magee’s ability to form a shared trust with her subjects. In this exhibition, you are encouraged to take a journey which mirrors Magee’s own, and to immerse yourself in the landscapes which inspire her: look up towards the treetops, crouch down within the undergrowth, and gaze into the misty distance.

As you move throughout the space, face and engage with the beings she photographs, and return their gaze. Magee describes her practice as ‘slow and deliberate’, an approach that is informed by her choice to photograph with large format cameras and film. In this way, her practice recalls photography’s origins in the nineteenth century, when heavy cameras and equipment necessitated careful planning and time. This way of working marks a strong contrast with the immediacy expected in the present digital age. Silver plates threaded throughout this exhibition also recall photography’s formative years, specifically daguerreotypes and tintypes, nineteenth-century photographic processes produced on metal surfaces.

The historic fallibility of film photography materials and chemistry, something widely removed via contemporary digital technologies, is also present in Magee’s work. Blurring, flare, visible emulsion – those things which are usually considered mistakes – are embraced and heighten the psychological intensity of her work. Through her practice, Magee reflects on the nature and power of photography, a medium which allows for fleeting encounters to be captured, contained and remembered.

Install photography by Andrew Curtis