STEFAN ROBERTS – Excursion – 15 Oct-1 Nov, 2024
Stefan Roberts offers an unusual way of comprehending landscape. The elegant black and white photographs in Excursion are honest recordings of local topography. Or are they?
Photography was invented during the nineteenth century when the wonders of science challenged the status quo and inventions came thick and fast. The first photographs must have been thought miraculous as the very notion that one could use light and shadow, not pencil and brush, to render the seen world would have astounded. How could light and chemistry capture your town, your loved one, you? The camera is a mechanical device, an insensible apparatus that records dispassionately; it cannot manipulate, flatter or lie. It is the photographer who does this – frames the shot, directs the focus, chooses the moment – and in the murky area between reality and contrivance, truth and fiction, lies the photographer’s art.
Stefan Roberts’ landscapes are not straightforward. From a distance we see continuous panoramas and believe that he has stood at some fixed point and taken in the view. Glimpses of Bank’s Peninsula, Monavale or Canterbury’s hinterland spark memories as if from remembered experience. They evoke a sense of familiarity yet the seamlessness is deceptive. On closer inspection we see that each image is pieced together from fragments. They puzzle and intrigue. Perspectives shift, horizons jump, hills transform into clouds. As Roberts says: ‘one sees a form of visual dream logic.’ He further explains: ‘My presence in the landscape is not static, the fragments reveal a journey, a movement through time and place. These works capture moments from the beginning through to the end of an excursion, anywhere all at once. They reflect my awareness that my recollections of a place are often imperfect, some aspects of the journey fade, while others stay lodged in my memory.‘
Roberts did not use a conventional camera to create these works. Rather, drawing on earlier tradition, he built his own pinhole camera. The cap comes off, light hits film; the cap goes on, image is secured. He manually advances the film in readiness for the next exposure then packs up his gear and walks or drives, sets up his tripod and lines the lens towards another view. This camera does not confine the entry of light rigidly on the left or right outer edges as most cameras do. Exposures therefore leak and fade from one to another in such a way that one view serendipitously entangles with neighbouring perspectives. The stretched format expands generously yet the scale is intimate; these aren’t large works, they do not overwhelm, they invite. The film’s sprocket holes become part of the scene and reinforce the notion of a journey. Their dotted regularity is reminiscent of markings for walking tracks on maps. Step-by-step they appear to traverse the terrain as Stefan did.
No journey is a visual experience pure and simple. Other senses come into play, thoughts and memories intrude and one’s attention strays. Our eyes are, therefore, fully open to the view intermittently. In Excursion we are presented with illusory photographs that use a sleight of hand. But Stefan Roberts does not aim to fool us, he is after something else. These images highlight the mutability of memory: its biases and fluctuating reliability. Although the landscapes in this show are not strictly speaking ‘true’ they are not detached from reality. They compress experience and invite the viewer to meander into landscapes that don’t quite make sense. One crosses familiar and unfamiliar terrain, one’s gaze wanders from place to strangely-connected place as we try to make sense of the journey. As Roberts suggests, these photographs access dream logic. They border on the surreal and we bring our own memory and imagination to them when we explore.
All works in this exhibition are archival pigment prints on paper, edition of 5, presented framed.
ARTISTS TALK: Sat 19 Oct, 11am
Join Stefan Roberts and Katie Thomas for a discussion about their exhibitions on Saturday.
Stefan Roberts has been exhibiting for over 25 years in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. His work has received recognition in many of New Zealand’s significant art awards and is held in the collection of Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and has been teaching at Ara Institute of Canterbury for 20 years.