SELECTED IMAGES
«At the heart of my practice is the need to examine the very nature of things. Why is something the way it is and how do things and people relate to each other. I’m interested in the idea of balance and equanimity where nothing and no one is privileged over something or somebody else. Photography is the perfect way to capture still frames of life each isolated one from another but together making up a mosaic that we call existence. My bookwork You Won’t Be With Me Tomorrow (2009) is one of my more personal projects. It arose following conversations with John Gossage and Alec Soth when they were in Auckland and together we presented a workshop. As is so often the case when photographers get together the talk flows around mutual friends, cameras (inevitably) and then relationships. Perhaps I said too much because John and Alec both agreed that I should make my WON’T BE work. It deals with loss, attachment, impermanence and the transient nature of things.. A metaphorical, loaded work that I hope many can identify with. Still Looking For It (2011) also has a personal edge to it. The work continues the line of inquiry I developed in my set of four bookworks, AS IT IS? In Four Chapters, which I made in 2010. Here in my own way I’m questioning the questions in the knowledge that there are never any answers. I’m looking at the essence of ITness itself. Trying to get beyond looking and seeing, to reach some understanding. To arrive at the heart of something fundamental. Of course that’s a bit like trying to pick up mercury with a fork. And after all, there is never any arrival.»
YOU WON’T BE WITH ME TOMORROW (2009)
STILL LOOKING FOR IT (2011)
© All copyright remains with photographer Harvey Benge