Breath of Light
Chris Morgan
4–21 DECEMBER

This body of work is centred on the Pieman River in the Tarkine.

Fundamentally, what attracts Chris Morgan to the Pieman is that it remains a wild river, one that has so far escaped political and corporate attempts to tame or pollute its brackish, tidal waters.

Photographically, Chris’ artistic challenge lies in aligning the digital processes he now uses with the analogue, filmic sensibility that shaped his formative years working with photographic film and darkroom technology. A consciousness of analogue photography stays with him, and many have noted that his recent digital work retains traces of this analogue feel. Digital tools allow him greater clarity, while still enabling a painterly, wavelength-based tonal quality.

Through these means, he explores the mystery and spiritual presence of this remarkable river. He works with the uncanny light that reflects off brackish darkness—low morning and evening light, stronger or diffuse illumination across the Tarkine, and the deep shadows that sometimes render the landscape almost colourless.

Chris works with a painterly inclination, knowing that no two lit moments are ever the same, retreating into a digital matrix of curiosity to create a tempered space and a contested ground within mechanically applied ink on metal.