Across a gothic dreamscape, the images of The Burning, have no sharp focus – bordering on the intangible, they change like moving sand when viewed from different angles and in different light. With other-worldly hues, and a film of dirt, a mist stirs in the burning landscape. Images struggle to stay together – they fall apart on the edge of evaporation.
It is a Wild West, a frontier. A woman in a Victorian era black dress is out for revenge. A shirtless youth grins in the shadows.
With a simmering intensity, the story reveals itself in the dark.
“Some time back, I travelled with a small photo crew to one of my Indigenous family’s ancestral areas looking for locations to stage a new photo drama using myself and actors… The locations I uncovered were visually featureless – meaning no great dramatic mountain range, forests or even a decent desert-scape – I only found endless dry brown scrub. In a sense, the plainness of the location and the dirt triggered my fictional open-ended narrative. I attempted to ‘fill it in’ as if to paint across a blank canvas.”
– Tracey Moffatt, 2024
Exhibition Dates: 12 July – 10 August 2024
Exhibition view: Tracey Moffatt, The Burning, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (12 July–10 August 2024). Courtesy Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
