Photo © Rory King
Talent of the Year 2020 - NOMINEE: Rory King
Burnt Fingers, Broken Nose
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Burnt Finger, Broken Nose is a visual chronicle illustrating the battles and tribulations of my own personal experience with acute mental and physical illness. Shot during a period of my life defined by isolation, uncertainty and anxiety, taking photographs became the loudest expression of everything I was battling against. The narrative of the work ebbs and flows through various imagery, all working to recall a similar, disquieting atmosphere that underpins the story. The images in the series adopt an ambiguous and evocative sequence over one that is explicit and concrete, located at the threshold between representation and abstraction. This allows the viewer to project their own individual experiences and anxieties into the work, whilst still retaining the essence of my own person journey.
Oscillating between still lives, landscapes and consistently returning to a pallid figure, the series attempts to suggest aesthetic and thematic correlations that thread the images together. It’s with this cryptic energy that unspoken tensions begin to manifest between notions of comfort and discomfort, interior and exterior, and the psychological spaces of the melancholic and sublime.
Burnt Finger, Broken Nose was shot entirely on my first 35mm camera, a Nikon EM, printed and subsequently torn and scratched. The process of mark making and effecting the materiality of the final photographs was an attempt to further enrich the work with visual tension and suggest a relationship between literal and psychological scarring. Although harrowing and forbidding, the core of this story is one of acceptance and recovery. Taking photographs through illness became an intrinsically therapeutic practice that gave me both a voice and allowed me to communicate, reach out and accept support. Creating this series not only functioned as an expressive outlet for my pain but also served as a poignant tool for psychological self-growth and healing.
About author:
Rory King’s work sits in the hybrid space between documentary practice and personal narratives fleshed out through an evocative and ambiguous visual discourse. Primarily shooting his work in black and white, and driven extensively by traditional photographic techniques, King is interested in the dualities and juxtapositions of human experience, the unseen personalities living on the fringes of society and the tensions between nostalgia, melancholia, and the sublime. Concerned with modes of fabricating and disseminating both intimate and grand narratives, King’s images fluctuate through the pairing of interior and exterior spaces, which metaphorically serve as a reflection of our expansive psychological mindsets.
King received the National Gallery of Australia, Summer Art Scholarship for photography in 2011, was named one of the up-and-coming artists of 2018 by Vogue, Australia, was awarded the Denis Diderot A-I-R grant / residency opportunity at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France, 2020 and most recently he was a first place recipient of the Australian Photography Awards 2020, STORIES competition. King graduated with a BFA from National Art School, Sydney in 2017.
Oscillating between still lives, landscapes and consistently returning to a pallid figure, the series attempts to suggest aesthetic and thematic correlations that thread the images together. It’s with this cryptic energy that unspoken tensions begin to manifest between notions of comfort and discomfort, interior and exterior, and the psychological spaces of the melancholic and sublime.
Burnt Finger, Broken Nose was shot entirely on my first 35mm camera, a Nikon EM, printed and subsequently torn and scratched. The process of mark making and effecting the materiality of the final photographs was an attempt to further enrich the work with visual tension and suggest a relationship between literal and psychological scarring. Although harrowing and forbidding, the core of this story is one of acceptance and recovery. Taking photographs through illness became an intrinsically therapeutic practice that gave me both a voice and allowed me to communicate, reach out and accept support. Creating this series not only functioned as an expressive outlet for my pain but also served as a poignant tool for psychological self-growth and healing.
About author:
Rory King’s work sits in the hybrid space between documentary practice and personal narratives fleshed out through an evocative and ambiguous visual discourse. Primarily shooting his work in black and white, and driven extensively by traditional photographic techniques, King is interested in the dualities and juxtapositions of human experience, the unseen personalities living on the fringes of society and the tensions between nostalgia, melancholia, and the sublime. Concerned with modes of fabricating and disseminating both intimate and grand narratives, King’s images fluctuate through the pairing of interior and exterior spaces, which metaphorically serve as a reflection of our expansive psychological mindsets.
King received the National Gallery of Australia, Summer Art Scholarship for photography in 2011, was named one of the up-and-coming artists of 2018 by Vogue, Australia, was awarded the Denis Diderot A-I-R grant / residency opportunity at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France, 2020 and most recently he was a first place recipient of the Australian Photography Awards 2020, STORIES competition. King graduated with a BFA from National Art School, Sydney in 2017.