FORMALITY at Trocadero Art Space

​“FORMALITY” group exhibition at Trocadero Art Space, is an examination of the figure within contemporary Australian photographic practice. The exhibition explores a variety of photographic approaches, ranging from the purely performative to the strictly documentary and includes work from Paul Batt, Daniel Boetker-Smith, Ross Coulter, Siri Hayes, Kristian Haggblom, Katrin Koenning and Georgia Mataxas. 19th March - 5th April 2014 I have to say, the space was curated so beautifully - this was my first visit to Trocadero and it was just lovely. The gallery is beautiful and has a very strong and solid feel to the space - a large square room as you enter followed by a hallway and then a smaller, longer, more interesting and versatile space behind. Lovely. The staff were so friendly and helpful and there was a great feeling to the lovely afternoon drinks and chatter opening. Paul Batt’s curatorship of this exhibition was beautiful, thematically and aesthetically, there were lovely and intentional weighting of space on images which I just loved. All of the works were quite beautiful and interesting to see, not only the artworks, but to see the types of prints, the framing choices, and the production of these photographs. Some darker works by Georgia Metaxas were sealed behind glass - allowing the viewer to constantly stare into their own reflection, no matter how hard they attempted to see the image behind. Personally, the larger portraits by Siri Hayes of ‘clowns’ halfway between human and archetype through the removal of clown makeup pieces were my favourite - the scale, the weight of the works, the cleanliness and sharpness and the creamy white prints - beautiful and striking. I also enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek false icon works by Ross Coulter - “Self Portrait As Aussie Jesus After Durer’ and ‘...He Walks On Water’ 2013 were quite funny, beautifully coloured and gorgeous prints of the artist. Katrin Koening’s three smaller photographs at the end of the hallway of the second space were beautiful, mysterious and anachronistic ‘holiday snaps’ of subjects missing faces/heads/identities. Interesting and lonely, these works really touched me with their quiet devastation. It was quite a beautiful show.