Rebecca Beardmore, Bowlo (detail), 2020. Photogravure and digital pigment print on cotton rag, 69 x 48cm, edition 1/3. Courtesy: the artist and Artereal Gallery, Sydney.

Neither here nor there explores the peripheral spaces of the Australian outback; the frontier sites of the Nineteen Counties of NSW that defined the limits of location of crown land in 1829. Focusing on the outskirt towns of the Central West NSW; Canowindra, Coonabarabran and the Warrumbungles, these isolated colonial settlements embody the nostalgic pastoral sites of human intervention where the boundary between cultivation and wilderness blur.

The sites are captured photographically, the images shot indirectly, as reflected scenes distorted, marred and muted, in a polished zinc plate. The intent is to represent the idea of place, rather than the specificity of location. Through their framing these works present the landscape as a view to be looked at, a claiming of the land that recalls not only the condition of cultivation but the authority of visual literacy enacted in the very partiality of our looking.

Please note this is an online exhibition. View the exhibition online here.

Follow this artist