Murray Fredericks, Blaze #23, Muloorina, 2023. Digital pigment print on cotton rag, 120 x 150cm. Courtesy: the artist and ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne.

In front of an artwork by Murray Fredericks, viewers often don’t quite believe what they are seeing. This is intentional, the artist aims to capture nature existing at the limits of human understanding. For some time now, Fredericks’ has been interested in “getting a response to infinity and a response to a sense of infinite space.” In the face of questions of infinity, we freeze, transfixed. In this way, the images that Fredericks makes act like spells.

BLAZE is Fredericks’ newest series. It presents naturally flooded landscapes twinned with a temporary flash of intense flame. Between the extremes of fire and flood, between an unstoppable water system and a real (but controlled) fire, Fredericks takes apart a moment in nature.

While they are works about the environment, Fredericks has abstracted the landscape and made it allegorical. One way he does this is by “denying elements of scale.” The horizon cuts through each of these images, appearing both near and impossibly far away. Fredericks travelled extensively to discover locations that gave off an impression of vast space. To capture this awesome scale, Fredericks creates a dramatic focal point. “In this new series,” he reflects, “I have kept that sense of space that is true to the locations and environment that all these images were produced in, but I have slipped in and made fire, flame, and – specifically – our evolutionary response to flame into central themes of the work.” In focusing on flame, Frederick captures a primal, human response to nature. In return, BLAZE has captured the imagination of audiences.

Opening Event: Tuesday 28 November, 6 – 8pm.

Follow this artist