WAYNE BARRAR by Milford Galleries

From the Banks of Waipahatu Toward Punehu Falls, the Catlins 2013 gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 516 x 572 x 35 mm, printed image: 275 x 400 mm

Falling Water at Waihopai River Dam Structure, Marlborough 2012 gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 437 x 539 x 35 mm, printed image: 180 x 253 mm

Lake and Dam at Birchville, Upper Hutt 2013

gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 439 x 539 x 35 mm, printed image: 194 x 277 mm

Discharge from the Mangahao to Mangaore Stream, Shannon 2012 gold toned matt albumen photograph, frame: 631 x 445 x 35 mm, printed image: 400 x 295 mm

The Shine Falls from Boundary Stream, Hawkes Bay 2013 gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 635 x 445 x 35 mm, printed image: 399 x 273 mm

High Water, Edge of Lake Wairarapa 2015

gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 516 x 573 x 35 mm, printed image: 250 x 378 mm

Edge of the Wairau River (south bank), Marlborough 2011 gold toned matt albumen photograph, frame: 427 x 529 x 29 mm, printed image: 183 x 244 mm

Felled Pine Near Lake Otamangakau 2013

photograph, frame: 433 x 540 x 35 mm, printed image: 281 x 355 mm

Rangitaiki River Remnant Flow from Lake Aniwhenua 2013 gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 516 x 572 x 35 mm, printed image: 270 x 394 mm

x 540 x 35 mm, printed image: 241 x 305 mm

From the Banks of Waipahatu Toward Pouriwai Falls, The Catlins 2013 gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 516 x 574 x 35 mm, printed image: 269 x 392 mm

Elvy Stream Waterfall, Pelorus 2013

gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 517 x 574 x 35 mm, printed image: 275 x 400 mm

Falling water at Birchville Dam, Upper Hutt 2013 gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 430 x 530 x 33 mm, printed image: 185 x 270 mm

Waiatiu Falls, Whirinaki 2013

gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 438 x 540 x 35 mm, printed image: 200 x 277 mm

Mangatini Falls at Ngakawau Gorge 2013

gold toned matt albumen photograph, frame: 623 x 438 x 29 mm, printed image: 375 x 247 mm

Felled Pine from Top Valley Road, Wairau Catchment 2013 platinum/palladium photograph, frame: 540 x 437 x 35 mm, printed image: 285 x 344 mm

Shifting Waters on the Ohau Canal 2013

gold toned albumen photograph, frame: 516 x 572 x 35 mm, printed image: 278 x 401 mm

Wayne Barrar is an observer, a researcher, and a narrator. His photographs have a depth and warmth. At the same time they speak volumes, and convey the photographer's deeply felt interest in - and concern at - the way humans have affected and interacted with the landscape.

These interests have led Barrar through an impressive array of portfolios, ranging from studies of the salt production at Lake Grassmere to An Expanding Subterra, his major exploration of underground industrial communities.

Barrar's research interests have led him to experiment with the processes used in the original photographic surveys of New Zealand, most importantly the albumen print process developed by Blanquart-Evrard in the 1850s. This process, a painstaking method involving coating paper in an egg and salt wash and then floating on silver nitrate, produces images with a rich brown cast and yellow and cream highlights. (1) The current exhibition focuses on this process, one which has been largely unused in New Zealand for over a century.

With The Catchments, Barrar returns to his long-term interest in historical New Zealand landscape representation which, combined with the methods and warm tones of the works, gives the images a strongly nostalgic feel. Rather than focus directly on human impact on the land, here the natural world and the artificial reflect each other, most poignantly in images of bushland waterfalls and similar cascades flowing over weirs and dams. The long time-exposures render these cataracts as silk curtains draped over a dark land which becomes alternately primordial and controlled. We may have "learned to perceive the picturesque and scenic as a particularly authentic representation of the land", (2) but here we are challenged to look again at the environment and human impact upon it, seeing both the natural and manipulated beauty of the scenes.

1. Misa Jeffereis, Albumen Print, Henry Collection, <http://dig.henryart.org/photography-and-video/www/innovation/albumen-print/#0>

2. Di Halstead, "Shifting Nature" review, Junctures Magazine, No 2, 2004, <http://www.junctures.org/index.php/junctures/article/view/154/157>

EXHIBITION PRICELIST

WAYNE BARRAR

b.1957,livesWellington

WayneBarrar:HighWater,EdgeofLakeWairarapa2015

"Most of my work is centered on the impact on land of the consequences of shifting cultural practices. Occasionally I will venture into the laboratory, as a place of change, in order to investigate human intervention at a ‘micro’ level. At other times I may revisit historical imagery or sites as a reference point…. In order to deal with the complexities and ironies inherent in the relationship between people and the environment, my work has evolved into a number of series – some finite, others ongoing. They may vary in approach and process, but in all of them the central consideration is this inter-relationship between culture and nature in an increasingly complex society."(1)

Wayne Barrar’s territorial explorations into New Zealand’s landscape, which has in recent times extended into Southern Iceland and the Great Salt Basin, Utah, convey human adaptation of the landscape with a surprising approach. Barrar’s photographs powerfully argue the connection between nature and culture and the ongoing relationship between them. "The country in his pictures has been entirely cleared of human beings, but humans are without doubt the reason that the country appears as it does. These are places we have ‘settled’, but in Barrar’s images they are capable of unsettling us."(2)

"Though the views are not what many of us would consider picturesque, Barrar manages to instill an order and calm to the scene, imparting them an uneasy beauty. He comfortably moves from grand expanse to the intimacy of a petri dish…. Barrar’s work is beautifully considered, his method is classical and technically superb." (3)

“Barrar has focused his coolly dispassionate lens on our artificial lake in Marlborough, wilding pines in the Mackenzie Basin and environmental degradation on the Island of Nauru, among other “New Topographies”. (4)

Born in Christchurch in 1957, Wayne Barrar gained a Bachelor of Science from The University of Canterbury in 1979, a Post Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 1996, and a Masters in Design from Massey University in 2005. He currently works as the Associate Professor and Director of Photography, School of Fine Arts at Massey University, Wellington. He has been awarded a number of international and national art residencies and grants. Barrar’s first survey book “Shifting Nature” was published in 2001 by University of Otago Press. In 2010 a major publication by Dunedin Public Art Gallery, “Wayne Barrar, An Expanding Subterra” accompanied his significant touring exhibition of the same name. His works have been exhibited in public galleries around New Zealand including the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, the City Gallery, Wellington and the Sarjeant Art Gallery, Wanganui. He has exhibited internationally around the USA, as well as in Hong Kong. Barrar’s works are held in public galleries, private and corporate collections in New Zealand and abroad.

1.ArtistStatement,2003.

2.GeoffPark,essayin‘ShiftingNature:PhotographsbyWayneBarrar’,UniversityofOtagoPress,2001.

3.IanRobertson,‘ChangingtheFocus’,EveningPost,19December2001.

4.DavidEggleton,‘NotesfromtheUnderground’,TheListener,2010.

EDUCATION

WAYNE BARRAR

b.1957,livesWellington

2005 Master of Design, Massey University

1996 Postgraduate Diploma of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland

1979 Bachelor of Science, University of Canterbury

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2015 The Catchments, milford galleries queenstown

Underground: Subterranean Economies and Ecologies, Prichard Art Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, USA

2012 Gone to Ground, Humanities Center Gallery, California State University, Chico, USA

Bio Borders, Pataka Museum of Art and Cultures, Porirua, Wellington

2011 Torbay ti kouka, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui

Wayne Barrar: An Expanding Subterra, City Gallery, Wellington

An Expanding Subterra, American University Museum/Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC, USA

2010 Contact Topographies, Milford Galleries Dunedin

An Expanding Subterra, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin

2006 The Machine Room, Milford Galleries Auckland, Auckland

2004 Inner Space, Milford Galleries Auckland, Auckland

Sightlines South, Milford Galleries Dunedin, Dunedin

Selections from the Home Range, McNamara Gallery, Wanganui

2003 Accumulating Histories, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

CLUI at Wendover, USA (2005)

Parts Unknown, Milford Galleries Auckland, Auckland

2002 Straumur McNamara Gallery, Wanganui

2001 Wayne Barrar: Landscapes of Change, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA

1999 An Immortal Double, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton

1998 An Immortal Double, Sarjeant Gallery, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt

1997 An Immortal Double, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui,

1995 Images from Shifting Nature, The Bath House Art and History Museum, Rotorua

1993 Shifting Nature, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

Shifting Nature, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

1991 Western US Landscapes, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

1990 Mason Bay: A Natural Succession, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

1989 Saltworks: The Processed Landscape, Sarjeant Gallery; Waikato Museum of Art and History; Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North; Marlborough Arts Centre, Blenheim; Lopdell House Gallery, Auckland (1994)

1988 New Landscape Cibachrome Photographs, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

1987 Landscape of Change, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui; 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2014 Flora Photographica Aotearoa, Bowen House, Parliament, Wellington

2013 The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown

Seasoned: Contemporary Salt Prints, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui

Freedom Farmers, Auckland Art Gallery

Present History: A Selection of Photographs of New Zealand 1960s to the Present, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Kainga, Whenua, Moana – Home, Land and Sea in Nga Toi Arts Te Papa, Te Papa, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington

Available Light, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui

2012 Down and Dirty: Mining Photographs, 1850-present, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Now and Then: Enduring and Developing Themes in Contemporary New Zealand Photography, Te Manawa Gallery, Palmerston North

Running on Pebbles, Snake Pit Gallery, Auckland

2011 Chemical Traces, Scott Building, University of Plymouth, UK

Placemakers, The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington

Scheimpflug Principle, projectspace B431, Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland

Sightseeing, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui

Sightseeing, St Paul Street Gallery, AUT, Auckland

2010 Community Garden, Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery, Wellington

2009 A serious kind of beauty: the heroic landscape, McNamara Gallery, Wanganui

Recent: Work by Ten NZ Photographers, Tauranga Art Gallery

Light: Black and Silver, Mahara Gallery, Waikanae

Earth: Prix Pictet (exhibition video presentation), Passage de Retz, Paris (plus other international venues)

AC/DC: The Art of Power, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Auckland

Picturing Eden, Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, USA

Picturing Eden, Herbert Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

2008 Land Wars, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland

Close-up, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Auckland

Picturing Eden, Munson-Williams-Procter Arts Institute, Utica, NY, USA

Picturing Eden, The Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas, USA

Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation (2008 curation), Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington

2007 Picturing Eden, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, USA

New Zealand Legacy: Aotearoa Taonga-tuku-iho (Min. of Culture and Heritage), The Art House, Singapore

Manapouri: Art, Power, Protest, National Library Gallery, Wellington Collection in Focus, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

The Long View, McNamara Gallery, Wanganui

Southern View: He tirohanga mai te Tonga Photographs of New Zealand’s culture, heritage and landscape, NZ Embassy, Hong Kong

2006

Picturing Eden, International Museum of Photography and Film/ George Eastman House, Rochester, USA

Perpetual Verdure, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Auckland

2005 The Altered Landscape, National Academy of Sciences Gallery and the Keck Center of the National Academies, Washington DC, USA

Pacific Light, Pataka Museum, Porirua

Solstice, Matakana Pictures, Matakana

2004 Prospect 2004: New Art New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington

Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington

The Altered Landscape, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

The Altered Landscape, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada

2003 Is As, Landscape as Metaphor, Milford Galleries Dunedin

The Altered Landscape, Yellowstone Art Museum, Montana, USA

Set Up, Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery Wellington

The Caravan, Pataka Museum of Arts and Culture, Porirua

2001 The Altered Landscape, Norsk Museum for Fotografi, Norway Victory over Death, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington

Chosen, Milford Galleries Auckland, Auckland

The Caravan, McNamara Gallery, Wanganui

2001 Old Gates New Journeys, Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery Wellington

Just Black and White, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

Landmarks, TeWa/ The Space, Wanganui

The Altered Landscape, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona USA; Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

2000 Not by Subject, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

1999 The Altered Landscape, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno USA

Sustainability: The Land Remains, Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North; Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

1997 Sum of its Parts, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

Automotive: Questioning the Car, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt

Waikato Te Awa: The People and the River, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton

Ink and Silver (works from publication), Escalante Gallery, Auckland

Currency, Contemporary Photographic Art, Auckland Institute and Museum

1994 River Images Revisited, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

1992 Natures Limits, New Work Studio, Wellington

1991 Big Green, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt

Pacific Traces, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

Contemporary Update, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

1991 Exit, George Fraser Gallery, Auckland

Twenty Photographers, Newton Gallery, Auckland

1990 Photoforum 90, NZ Centre of Photography, Wellington, Blue Angel Gallery, Auckland

United Photographic Award Exhibition, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

Now See Hear!, Wellington City Art Gallery

History and its Theatre, Wanganui Regional Museum

Readings from a Certain Landscape, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

Acquisitions Review, Auckland City Art Gallery

1988 New Works for the Collection, Manawatu Art Gallery

Two Photographers, McDougall Art Annex, Christchurch

Regional Photographers, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

Acquisitions, Waikato Museum of Art and History

1984 Five Cameras, Wellington City Art Gallery

1988 New Landscape Cibachrome Photographs, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

1987 Landscape of Change, Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui; 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington

AWARDS, GRANTS & RESIDENCIES

2011 Research Fellowships: School of Art and Media, University of Plymouth (UK)

MAPDA - Museums Australia book award, (winner, major exhibition catalogue category) for An Expanding Subterra

2009 Nominated for Prix Pictet (and included in associated publication), UK

2005, 07, 09,11 Massey University Research Grants (MURF)

2007 COCA Mid Career Researcher Award

2004 Light Work Residency, Robert B. Menschel Media Center, Syracuse (NY), USA

2002 Project Grant (New Work, Visual Arts) Creative New Zealand, Arts Council of New Zealand

2001 CLUI Artist Residency to USA

2000 Straumur International Artist Residency to Iceland

1995 STA Study Award for full time postgraduate study in photography

1994 Documentary Commissioning Grant Waikato Museum of Art and History

1990 Direct Assistance Grant QE 11 Arts Council of New Zealand

COLLECTIONS

Auckland Art Gallery

George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, USA

Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt

Light Work, Syracuse USA

Te Manawa/ Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Collection, Wellington

Ministry for Culture and Heritage Collection, Wellington

Nevada Museum of Art, Reno USA

Riddet Collection, Massey University, Palmerston North Christchurch Art Gallery

Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui

Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill

State Services Commission Library Collection, Wellington

University of Auckland Collection

Real Art Charitable Trust Collection

Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton

Wellington City Council Art Collection

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Work also held in private and corporate collections in New Zealand and overseas.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

2013 Pike, David, The Bunkerization of Albania (with images by Wayne Barrar), Cabinet, No. 50

2012 Bolland, Mark, Cultural Cross-Pollination: Wayne Barrar’s Torbay ti kouka,” Art New Zealand 142 Patrick, Martin, Imagined Landscapes and Subterranean Simulacra, Afterimage 39 (6)

Preston and Wayne Barrar, Julieanna, Subterra: Interior Economies of Underground Space, IDEA Journal 2011 (published 2012)

Now and Then: Enduring and Developing Themes in Contemporary New Zealand Photography. Exhibition catalogue. Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Palmerston North

2010 An Expanding Subterra, Wayne Barrar (monograph book), with essays by David L Pike and Kreisler, A. Dunedin Public Art Gallery 2010

Scott , Hanna & Ann Shelton (eds). Sightseeing, Rim Books

2009 Camera Austria 107 (journal portfolio), Graz, Austria Earth: Prix Pictet (book), teNeues, London 2009

Campbell, Fiona (ed).Real Art Roadshow: The Book, Craig Potton Publishing 2009

2008 Bugden , Emma (ed) Land Wars: The Reader, Te Tuhi/ PROGRAM, Berlin

Close-up (exhibition catalogue) Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Auckland

2007 Pike, David L, Metropolis on the Styx: The Underworlds of Modern Urban Culture, 1800-2001, Cornell University Press

2006 Eggleton, David, Into the Light: A History of New Zealand Photography, Craig Potton Publishing Reviewing Subterra, (conference paper) Southerly, Vol .65 Number 3. Sydney Klochko, Deborah, Picturing Eden, Steidl/ GEH, Gottingen/ New York Park, Geoff, Theatre Country: Essays on Landscape and Whenua, Victoria University Press

2005 Strongman, Lara (ed) Contemporary New Zealand Photographers Mountain View Press Hipkins, Gavin, Dugout: Wayne Barrar’s Subterra, Art New Zealand, 116 Bayly, Janet Contact Sheet 132, (Portfolio with essay) Light Work, Syracuse. NY

2003 Coolidge , Matthew Accumulating Histories, (exhibition catalogue), Sarjeant Gallery

2002 Terrain, Landfall, 204, University of Otago Press

Straumur (poems by Kerry Hines) McNamara Gallery

The Caravan (exhibition catalogue), McNamara Gallery in association with Pataka

2001 Park, Geoff, Shifting Nature: Photographs by Wayne Barrar, University of Otago Press

1998 Thompson, Paul, New Zealand, A Century of Images, Te Papa Press

1996 Brown, Warwick, Another 100 New Zealand Artists, Godwit Barrar, Wayne, An Immortal Double (exhibition catalogue), Sarjeant Gallery

1992 Waikato Te Awa, The People and the River, (catalogue from the commissioned photographic documentary project), Waikato Museum of Art and History Ink and Silver Photoforum (limited edition book)

1993 Turner, Jon B & Main W, History of New Zealand Photography from the 1840’s to the present, Photoforum

1992 Barrar, W and Ministry for the Environment Shifting Nature (exhibition catalogue)

1991 Exit (exhibition catalogue) Artspace, Auckland

1990 Paul, Joana, Landscape as Text: the Literacy of Wayne Barrar, Now See Hear!, Victoria University Press and Wellington City Gallery

Schulz, Derek, A Delusive Light through a Bouncing Wall: Issues of Landscape and Powerlessness in the Photography of Wayne Barrar, Art New Zealand, No. 53 United Photographic Award (exhibition catalogue)

1987 Paul, Joanna, Saltworks: The Processed Landscape (exhibition catalogue), Sarjeant Gallery

Pardington, Neil, Landscape of Change, (exhibition catalogue) Sarjeant Gallery