LIGHT | FALL
SCOTT PERKINS
2021 Exhibition
The art forms of many cultures contain references to the power of the night, where otherworldly figures inhabit a magical realm, their movements illuminated only by moonlight, or errant humans conduct nefarious activities under the shadow of darkness. The earth sleeps, while myriad creatures go about their nightly business.
This sense of mystery abounds in Scott Perkins’ photographs. There is a majesty in these starless skies, the earthly stage devoid of human sign, its players elsewhere. Only the moon, unseen, casts an uncanny glow, suggesting a life beyond the horizon, just out of reach.
Perkins’ skilled control of photographic technique is evident in every frame, the dense, textured rag paper only revealing its delicate texture on close observation. Light suffuses each image, softly radiating from a narrow reflection on the earth’s horizon, intersected by velvety peninsulas of land. One senses the vastness of sky and sea. Silence reigns, each image replete with a feeling of peace, an earth and sea at rest, timeless.
Perkins’ lightboxes suggest a careful choreography – the halo of light emanating from each work artfully measured, enhancing their sculptural dimensions. These borders of light, reflecting the literal space of the gallery wall, balance the horizontal borders within. In Light | fall, his pièce de résistance must be Large Lightbox I 2021. Here the strip of moonlight is close to hand, picking out yellow and white spring blossom on the manuka or kanaka trees in the foreground. Closer still, a reflection of green seems to shimmer in the darker void in the middle ground, before reflecting on mist obscuring the grandeur of the mountains. One senses a primordial landscape, pristine, only the privileged spectator permitted to gaze upon its inky splendour.
Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington describes the dawn as ‘the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
- Mary Kisler, 2021