Trent Parke

Trent Parke’s landmark publication Monument is a portal through which we bear witness to the disintegration of the universe over 294 expertly printed pages.

The monolithic publication is painstakingly hand-bound in leather bearing totemic coordinates to the planet Earth, blind stamped end sheets, black sprayed edges, and a loose steel plaque, that once removed, leaves the volume without language.

When Trent Parke moved to Sydney from a small Australian country town, his first impression was of the sheer volume of people. He would grab his camera and go out exploring at every opportunity, fascinated by the endless processions. 
At rush hour, he watched as the city workers moved in a great mass, all walking the great conveyor belt of life. In a trance-like state, treading the same path day after day, week after week, year after year… clocking on, clocking off, all under the spell of the city. Parke would stand on the edge of the wave, on the outside of a new world, looking in. As if watching a newly discovered species. 
 
 “At night I would watch the eclipse of moths, millions of them constantly circling the lights of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At the same time, on my balcony, a miniature performance played out around the light above my head. The moths inevitably and without resistance were drawn to their ultimate demise. Spiralling out of control, like small spaceships caught in a tractor beam. Lured and blinded by the bright white light, they were taken out by hundreds of birds swooping in to snatch them from the air… spiders sat waiting on their webs. Built with precise coordinates across the face of the lights, they captured the hapless tiny creatures that slipped through. If any miraculously managed to survive that onslaught, they continued on, driven towards the flame, intoxicated by those burning hot light globes. Then suddenly an electrical charge in the still air. A small puff of smoke. Gone. Instant disintegration of a life form. Another blip in the universe. Another small spacecraft colliding with the blazing sun.” - Trent Parke

First edition copies of Trent Parke's 'Monument' is now available to purchase through the Hugo Michell Gallery Online Shop. 

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of Trent Parke’s ‘The Crimson Line’ and Sangeeta Sandrasegar’s ‘Bestiarium 2019’ on Thursday 31 October 6-8pm.

For Trent Parke’s new series ‘The Crimson Line’, industrial landscapes are merged with ethereal cloudscapes, a splicing of atmospheres and dual notions of reality.

Life and death, light and shadow, space and time, memory. These are the themes that have always been at the forefront of Parke’s work. The Crimson Line continues to explore these ideas. Cinematic in his vision, Parke’s work has always been firmly established in film Noir. From the micro to the macro, science, genetics, factory lines, laboratories and processing plants. Global warming, consumerism and beauty, his landscapes provide a backdrop that frames a dark and foreboding narrative of strange truth and fiction.

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The series Bestiarium 2019 draws upon the history of visual representation from botanical and natural history illustrations and classical Western art genres to examine the legacy of artistic vision upon ways of knowing the world around us. The cutouts draw upon the watercolours of Austrian master dyer Aloys Zötl’s Bestiarium, a series of exquisite paintings of various animals undertaken from 1831 until his death in 1887. In Sandrasegar’s re-interpreted Bestiarium 2019 these fantastical animals sit alongside sculptures from collections of various German museums in settings of the artists imagination. The palette of the series draws upon they hyper-colour of Indian miniatures, and through these varied references Sandrasegar attempts to fix multiple expressions of seeing.

Sangeeta Sandrasegar has exhibited professionally in national exhibitions of emerging art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne; and the Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland; in addition to major international exhibitions and biennials in New Zealand, Korea, India and the USA.

Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two incredible exhibitions!

Exhibition runs until November 23.

Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.

Trent Parke and Justine Varga are now showing in Defining Place/Space: Contemporary Photography from Australia at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.

‘Defining Place/Space’ represents the current state of contemporary photography in Australia through the work of thirteen artists. The exhibiting artists were nominated by esteemed Australian curators of photography, and ultimately selected by MOPA’s Chief Curator Deborah Klochko.

Exhibition runs until September 22.

Congratulations to Narelle Autio, Trent Parke, Matthew Bate (Closer Productions), and collaborator Anton Andreacchio (Jumpgate VR) for winning the Imagine Film Festival, Imagine VR Award for ‘The Summation of Force’!

In their creative collaboration, Parke and Autio turn their gaze to the possibilities of filmic narrative, and look to family and sport for subject material. In a moonlit suburban yard, two brothers battle one another in a mythic game of cricket. A study of the motion, physics and psychology of elite sport; a cosmic, dreamlike and darkly beautiful metaphor for life.

This is the inaugural award at Imagine Film Festival for a virtual reality piece.

Congratulations to Narelle Autio, Trent Parke, Matthew Bate, and Anton Andreacchio, the team behind The Summation of Force. Officially selected for the Sundance Film Festival: Mobile VR Lineup, The Summation of Force will be exhibited in January 2018 alongside an extensive international festival program.

In their creative collaboration, Parke and Autio turn their gaze to the possibilities of filmic narrative, and look to family and sport for subject material. In a moonlit suburban yard, two brothers battle one another in a mythic game of cricket. A study of the motion, physics and psychology of elite sport; a cosmic, dreamlike and darkly beautiful metaphor for life.

Previous iterations of the video piece were exhibited during 2017 at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art and in for the first time in VR (virtual reality) at the Adelaide Film Festival. 

Hugo Michell Gallery invites you to the opening of our SALA exhibitions; Narelle Autio & Trent Parke’s The Seventh Wave and Philjames’ The Lite Ages, on Thursday, August 3 from 6pm!

First exhibited in 2000, The Seventh Wave is a collaborative exhibition by acclaimed photographers Narelle Autio and partner Trent Parke.

Penetrating the sea’s surface, they got under a nation’s skin. Their pictures catch Australians’ infinite patience in waiting for the next wave; their fearlessness in diving into the tumultuous swell; their blithe spirit in that final flick of the hair.
– Michael Fitzgerald

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In his latest body of work, The Lite Ages, Philjames continues to intervene directly on vintage reproductions of traditional paintings with playful outcomes. Philjames presents the works as genuine artefact and elevates the status of pop culture comics such as The Simpsons and Mickey Mouse to historical significance. Humorous, entertaining and executed with faithfulness, The Lite Ages reveals the artist’s imagination and mischief.

Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions on August 3!

Launching at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art on Thursday, June 29, The Summation of Force is a collaborative multimedia installation by South Australian artist duo Trent Parke and Narelle Autio.

In their creative collaboration The Summation of Force, Parke and Autio turn their gaze to the possibilities of filmic narrative, and look to family and sport for subject material.

A multi-channel video work that pitches competitive sport and the mythical power of cricket as a metaphor for life and parenthood, The Summation of Force is no less than a Lynchian suburban dreamscape. It is a paean to collective dreams, youthful determination, and the bonds that sporting ambition can create both within families and nations.   

The Summation of Force by Trent Parke and Narelle Autio has been produced in association with Closer Productions and the Adelaide Film Festival, and is presented by the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art for the 2017 SALA Festival.

Exhibition runs from June 30 to September 1. Head here for more information.

Press:

• Press release: The Summation of Force bowls into Samstag
• Art Guide: Trent Parke and Narelle Autio: The Summation of Force
• The Australian: Summation of Force pushes the boundaries of bat and ball
• ABC Radio: Photographer couple explores the evolution of cricket
• Arts Hub: Surprise! Arts sector to challenge screen world in Hive #4
• UniSA Alumni News: Narelle Autio

Now on display at the Australian War Memorial (AWM), WW1 Avenue of Honour is a series of twenty-two images by Trent Parke. The exhibition will run until early next year and was previously exhibited as part of The First World War Now in Bruges, Belgium presented by Magnum Photos.

Produced after a period of time spent understanding and researching the Ballarat Avenue of Honour, a site in which since 1971, 3,801 trees have been planted to honour the service of an local individual. The Avenue of Honour is the largest of it’s kind and now stretches 22kms.

“In selecting and photographing a particular tree he sought to explore both tangible and abstract parallels between the natural forms as he encountered them and the fate of the individual whom the tree commemorates. Parke undertook detailed research drawing on the Red Cross Wounded and Missing files to find links between biographical records and the appearance of the corresponding tree in planting position, size, shape, texture, irregularities of growth, setting in the landscape or it’s silhouette against the sky. His photographs capture these visual forms as an act of contemporary commemoration. “

For more details and information about this exhibition, visit the Australian War Memorial website here.