“Art in my studio is better than in a gallery,” boasts photographer Peter Whyte of Tasmania, Australia. The photographer documents and highlights the work of Tasmanian artists, painters, sculptors and other creatives. While he says documenting a painting is a careful lighting exercise, it’s when someone comes to him with a 3-dimensional object that his task is “elevated to interpretation.”
This approach to his work comes with a lot of responsibility, which Whyte writes off as enjoyable. Whyte states that he likes the initial moments in which an artist has brought a work in to be photographed. Whyte positions it on a table or easel and lights it. It’s within this moment, Whyte states, that the artist becomes a viewer instead of the maker. Control, here, is ceded to Whyte who will frame the work as the world will see it.
This is what he did with a series of objects and vessels created in porcelain and bronze by Tasmanian artist Belinda Winkler. Winkler, according to her biography, senses life within forms. She states that curves, prominently featured in these works, project tension and energy which are difficult to view with a detached attitude; one feels compelled to touch them. “Such curves invite associations beyond the visual and the intellectual,” she states. “They are evocative and thus have the potential to generate connections, sensually, emotionally and imaginatively…”
Whyte’s work with Winkler was nominated for a 2012 B&W Spider Award in photography. His more-recent photography work, outside of his work with Winkler, was honored with Platinum and Gold awards through the Graphis Photography Annual this year.
Whyte, according to his biography, started his photography and graphic design studio in Hobart in 1983. Since then he has been photographing the best of Tasmania’s gourmet food and produce, architecture and industry, people and places, punctuated by assignments nationally and internationally including commissions in Italy, New Zealand and the Republic of Kiribati.
Winkler received a Bachelor of Education in 1986, a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours and the Australian Postgraduate Award in 2006. She received the Object Award for Studio Based Practice at the Object: New Design 2005 National Graduate Exhibition, was a Finalist in The Skin Of Corian International Design Competition in Milan in 2006, in 2010 was awarded the MONA Prize in the City of Hobart Art Prize and in 2011 was a finalist in the national Vitrify Alcorso Ceramic Award, the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize and was invited to complete her PhD Research at RMIT’s School of Architecture and Design.
Above image: A tactile, curved form created by Belinda Winkler, photographed by Peter Whyte. Image courtesy of the photographer. © Peter Whyte.
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Porcelain and bronze objects by Belinda Winkler, photographed by Peter Whyte. Images courtesy of the photographer. © Peter Whyte.
As a practising ceramist I photograph my own work. These images throw that practice into question. Great work enhanced by great images.
Peter has been photographing my work longer than I can remember (20 years?). As stated in the article, once I hand him my sculpture, I become the viewer and not the maker. A place I’m more than happy to occupy while he does his magic.
Thank you Garth for your kind words. It is quite a privilege to be able to photograph a lot of work by a individual artist and their practice over a considerable period of time.
There are more images of Belinda’s work and art practice at
http://peterwhytephotography.com/winkler-artist-photography
two wizards in perfect partnership………these images are mesmerising!