Jane Brown: Light and Darkness

Brown was interested in this history, and created the series during a trip to Japan, a place she had long wanted to travel to. “As a photographer, Japan is a very desirable place,” she states, “and particularly so as a film photographer because they still have real reverence for film. Japan is also interesting because, as a western traveller, you always feel like a bit of an outsider. I was interested in Japan’s history of isolationist policies: it was not until the mid-19th century that it began to open up to foreigners and ultimately modernise. Interestingly, this was also the time of the birth of photography and many photographers went there keen to see this exotic place. I was aware of these histories and I felt like I had a similar experience travelling there – everything seemed so beautiful or exotic or strange and I tried to convey these historical ideas in the series.” Alongside her interest in the history of Japan and photography, she was also interested in more recent occurrences – not least of all, the close trade relationship between Japan and Australia and the troubled war history of the two countries.

Ideas of history often circulate within Brown’s work: “I often look to strange aspects of history,” she says, also describing the opportunity to undertake historical research as “definitely a big motivating factor” in her art practice. Alongside specific historical research into each subject, her images also circulate with broader ideas of history and temporality. Many of her photographs carry a beguiling sense of temporal ambiguity – sometimes it’s not clear if these images were taken yesterday or last century. This inspires thinking about ideas of permanence versus impermanence, relationships between the past and the present and the nature of enduring versus ephemeral materials. These ideas are, of course, also central to Japanese aesthetics, as Brown notes: “In Japan the idea of the cherry blossom, which is so integral to their culture, is all about the ephemeral and those ideas are also quite important to my work. There is always the sense of being on the verge of shifting or things starting to disappear.”

The photographs in The Black Ships series are presented at an intimate scale, encouraging close viewing that immerses the viewer in the potent atmosphere of each place or subject depicted. Strong atmospherics modulate across the series; each image – whether of schoolchildren walking down a path, glorious Japanese maples, shrines nestled within foliage, or monuments – such as the infamous shrine in Hiroshima with a flame that will continue burning until all nuclear weapons are destroyed – exude a distinct ambiance.

The materiality of Brown’s work is an essential aspect of her practice. She works exclusively with monochrome film and handprints the images in her black and white darkroom, working carefully to coax the right qualities out of the silver gelatin paper and often finishing each image with selenium or gold toner. “Film is very important to me,” she states. “I think that is always going to be the case. There is something about the tactileness of it. For me, there is something beautiful about capturing an image on film. The darkroom is still a wonder to me – I do not think I would enjoy photography if I were not printing myself in the darkroom. It’s quite a laborious process compared to printing digitally, but I like the slowness of hand-printing and it gives me a certain ownership over the work – more so than if I was taking it to a printer.”