Sue Ford’s Last Light series is a vivacious and mystical response to land, imagery and cultural identity. Her painterly compositions are photographs of other photographers taking aim on various sites in Northern NS.W. Like an archaeologist at play, Ford interrogates the lyrical idea that ‘everyone is now a photographer’.
Dealing with aspects of Australian history, cultural vision and the human condition, Ford has created an illusionary world by intersecting the “history” of the land with the “now”.
By photographing the photographer, rather than the sunset itself, she is adding a narrative about the human condition, the notions of awe and the sublime, which her tourist photographers seem to think can be captured with a digital click. Alongside such artists as Tracey Moffatt and Bill Henson, Sue Ford has helped establish photography as the cutting edge of contemporary art over the last two decades.
Ashley Crawford
“In a sense they are a continuation of a work entitled Videoland that was shown at the NGV in 1994,”. Videoland was about tourists in central Australia using their video cameras to direct their own landscapes. These photographers are in an unspecified costal area engaged in the classic mode of attempting to capture a sunset where the light is constantly changing, all with their digital cameras. This work is looking at photography, landscape and illusion referencing the digital world where everybody is now a photographer. I have chosen to work with this subject, in a digital mode intentionally using the particular qualities of digital imaging to produce this body of work.”
Sue Ford
BIO
Sue Ford was the first Australian Photographer to be given a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, exhibiting her famous Time Series. Ford studied photography at RMIT in Melbourne and since 1971 she has had numerous photographic exhibitions.
Sue Ford, film maker, photographer and photomedia artist, is one of Australia’s leading image makers. She is an artist who broke significant ground in photomedia work in Australia throughout the later part of the 20th Century. Sue Ford was also the first Australian photographer to have a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1974 with her now famous Time Series.
Ford’s significance as an Australian photographer spans nearly four decades, exhibiting major bodies of work in most state collections, with a total of three solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria, including the well known Shadow Portraits series which were featured as large scale laser prints that wrapped the long walls of the NGV and were first shown in 1994.
Melissa Amore
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