Marian Drew: Photographs + Video Works
Introduction: Geoffrey Batchen. Essays: Caroline Jordan, Anne Kirker, Brigitta Olubas, Russell Storer and Marian Drew
Queensland Centre for Photography, Brisbane, 2006
100pages, hardcover, $55.00
Marian Drew’s new anthology investigates her art practice over the past twenty-five years. It is a striking publication with over eighty reproductions providing a cross-section of the artist’s photographic practice. It is accompanied by a beautifully-crafted DVD containing a recent interview with the artist by Kris Carlon, two documentaries and several examples of Drew’s video work, including a new piece titled Song in a teacup.
Each of authors considers a different aspect of Drew’s work, charting her artistic development both stylistically and intellectually. The artist’s interaction with the landscape is the main theme of Caroline Jordan’s contribution. Jordan makes connections between Drew’s childhood in Bundaberg and her ongoing fascination with capturing the landscape to highlight the artist’s exploration of working at night with long exposures and selective lighting, techniques used to develop aspects of her mis-en-scènes, and to convey a sense of time.
Anne Kirker considers the period 1986-96, arguably the key period in Drew’s development as an artist. Kirker highlights the influence that performance artists of the 1970s and ’80s have had in the evolution of Drew’s studio-based work, in particular her use of the human figure (often herself) in long-exposure, torch-lit imagery. Drew’s use of the body is primarily as a performative tool rather than as social commentary. Kirker also underlines the importance of a sense of place in Drew’s work, developed during periods working overseas. It is also during this time that Drew focussed on domestic sites, which in turn brought traditionally private spaces into a public realm. The hidden becomes exposed. Local histories are similarly highlighted throughout this period, including references to the treatment of indigenous people. Kirker suggests that during these years Drew