Review: Eight Paths, One Journey, an exhibition of photographic works by Matt Dragun and Nic Montagu
One would expect a photographic exhibition on the healing powers of yoga to be full of the typical clichéd images of new-age types contorting their bodies in some serene natural setting and, while there are titbits of that in this show photographed by Nic Montagu with Matt Dragun, there is also something quite unusual and interesting going on; a fracturing of spaces, bodies and emotions that adds a kind of frantic energy to this typically tranquil subject matter. The Beyond Blue message of depression is not met with the stereotypes either, nor is it condescended to with a “use yoga and get happy” message, it is just an attempt at authenticity which has long been amiss in the postmodern artistic climate of ironic play and pastiche. This is not to say the exhibition does at all times succeed, but there is something real and personal of the participants which is being exposed by the artists.
The exhibition is made up of three parts. There is a melange of more straight and typical yoga portraits; written testimonials from yoga practitioners, discerning which is understandably and necessarily not always clear; and finally images created and interpreted from the subject testimonials, and projected back onto yoga posed portraits. This is where the exhibition takes on more meaning, more visual literacy, and shatters all preconceived expectations for the better. The layers of intent and execution are by far the most interesting in the latter, yet one can understand the need for the rest.
The mix of the three is logical, based on what appears to be the Montagu & Dragun’s need to represent the subjects in a more truthful, holistic light by unifying their thoughts, their body through yoga, and finally the combination of the two. To review this exhibition though one must almost assess the parts individually because of the variance in what they do; the yoga portraits and testimonials are almost reassuring whilst the projected work contains some discomfort.
The straight yoga poses tend toward a commercial style. The representations of the body are not Bill Brandtesque fragmentations of limbs photographed through distorted lenses, they are more about the body in context. The environments vary from warehouses, to streets, to the woods. Through this choice to photograph a variety of settings the photographers seem to have locked themselves into offering more full body shots of the subjects – to capture it all.
These images demonstrate high technical competence, good lighting, and the whole show is old-school lith prints, culminating to mark a return to real photographic craftsmanship. Whatbegins to fall down with this particular set of images though, is the need to get it all in - toshow everything - to the point where the mystery is sometimes lost. This is not a rule that pertains to all of them though the portrait of a woman with her legs behind her head in a kind of suffocated glory and dismemberment is excellent, or the moments where the portraits have been infused with a kind of energy from slow shutter speeds, or the man best described as in a push-up pose over a puddle where we can make out his reflection. These images, and a few others, were fantastic in adding some eloquent straightness to the other more disorienting set of photographs which I will discuss later. The success of these afore mentioned photographs, compared with others of yoga poses in warehouses or on the street, held their mystery and intrigue while still operating at the documentary level that the photographers appeared to be striving for. This set could have been edited down, this is not to say that the images here are not of an excellent quality, it’s just that they weren’t as exceptional and transformative as the others, and stuck out for that reason. I also understand that the show could feasibly lose some of its impact should these photos not appear.
The testimonials tacked under each photo offered an interesting storytelling aspect to the show and perhaps anchored the two sets of photos. The narrative voice of the subjects satisfied curiosity and linked the show well across the themes . The stories were not astounding, or spectacular, they were more often than not experiential snippets of what yoga did for the subject depicted, or what it represented for them, but they were honest. Sometimes they bordered on confessional and when that occurred they had the power to alter the work in a humanist sense. These photo texts were again a means of contextualising the work. While the straight portraits used the external environment to situate yoga, the words provided by the subjects offered insight into their mindsets. Where the mystery was sometimes lost in this external context, as with the first, the ambiguity was reinjected through the testimonials. The story beyond the picture began to emerge, and the human desire for storytelling and truth spurred a reinvigorated interest in those straight yoga poses. In the instance of the projected works, sometimes the child in me wanted the testimonials to be on cut-out sheets of paper where I could link the text to the metaphoric interpretation, as it was, the testimonials being offered along side this set made me ponder the efficacy of the photographic interpretation in relation
to the text. This turned out not to be a mistake on behalf of Montagu & Dragun as the images continued to meet and exceed my expectations. The words were transformed by the interpretations the artists offered.
The projected onto portraits were by far the most exciting part of the show for me. I found something almost sinister going on in some of them, in others a kind of disorientation and confusion that held my gaze for longer than I intended to stay at the show. The projected images, loaded with their own connotations, were peeled along the skin of a body in a yoga pose, in darkness and light, which used the black and white of the medium to a convulsive capacity. The lit parts of the projected images illuminated contorted body parts and had something of a horror feel, yet this work was not gratuitous, but paradoxically simple andcomplex; beautiful and foreboding. The projected images also allowed for bizarre reactions in size of the photographic works. Hands in prayer projected down a nude back made for a stunning example. The enormous hands, white and glowing, illuminated the ridges in the subject’s back and joined in prayer at the spine. All manner of things were projected, from peacocks to fireworks, this demonstrated a clear difference in the emotions these metaphors were seeking to extol, from depression, to anxiety, to pride, to accomplishment. This set of images for me did well to understand the nature of the human condition, the fragmentation of the mind and the body, and worked toward outwardly presenting inner anguish and human desire.
This show was not a government publicity campaign for physical activity or mental illness, but instead proved that there is a more honest and interesting method for shedding light on the human condition, one that neither patronises nor preaches; one which is also neither depressing or attempting some dizzying heights of elation. The subjects were treated with great respect and humility by the artists, which, when also gilded with their technical abilities, eventuated in really interesting and insightful photographs. Montagu & Dragun have created what is a very fascinating and diverse show from a technical, artistic and human perspective. Shows of this kind have, often and unfortunately, been underprivileged in contemporary art today – this kind of show is exactly what we need not just in the art world, but in the human one.
By Emma-Kate Dowdell
PhD (photomedia)
School of Communications and Arts
Edith Cowan University
Mount Lawley, Western Australia