Murray Fredericks' new exhibition hits Sydney

1 April 2019

Sydney's ARC ONE gallery will showcase a new exhibition, WITNESS, the latest ‘cycle’ in award-winning Australian artist Murray Fredericks’ 16-year SALT Project, from this week.

Murray Fredericks, Array #10, 2018, digital pigment print on cotton rag, edition of 7, 120 x 175 cm. Courtesy the artist and ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne.

WITNESS continues Murray Fredericks’ deep relationship with Lake Eyre and his intrepid pursuit to understand the overwhelming emptiness and powerful emotional resonance of remote land and sky.

Camping alone for weeks at a time, Fredericks’ spiritual and mental experience of this environment is encapsulated in his immersive abstract landscapes that bear WITNESS to the transcendent capacity of light, colour, and space.

Comprised of two significant bodies of work, Vanity (2017) and Array (2018/9), WITNESS sees Fredericks intersect endless space through the ethereal reflective quality of mirrors.

Rather than employing the mirror as a symbol of self-reflection, Fredericks redirects our gaze away from ourselves and into the immense environment.

Murray Fredericks, Array #11 (Venus Jupiter), 2018, digital pigment print on cotton rag, edition of 7, 120 x 165 cm. Courtesy the artist and ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne.

Both Vanity and Array are cycles of a much larger SALT Project which to date comprises of 23 trips to Lake Eyre since 2003. SALT has unintentionally become a truly epic project in time and scale as Fredericks is drawn again and again to the desolate, empty and infinite salt pan that is Lake Eyre.

You can see the trailer for SALT below:

More info

WITNESS: ARC ONE in Sydney, 36 – 40 Queen Rd, Woollahra
4 - 13 April, 11am – 6pm.
An opening reception will be held on 4 April, 6pm – 8pm. More info here.

About the artist

Murray Fredericks is an internationally acclaimed and multi-award-winning photographer and filmmaker. Fredericks has exhibited widely, and his work has been acquired by prestigious public and private collections internationally, including the National Gallery of Victoria; Australian Parliament House; Australian National Portrait Gallery; Artbank; The Sir Elton John Collection; Macquarie Bank; Commonwealth Bank; The Myer Collection; The Valentino Collection; and a number of regional galleries across Australia.

In 2015, he received the People’s Choice Award for the Bowness Photography Prize, was runner up in the Head-On Festival Landscape Prize and a finalist in the JUWS Photography Award.

His first documentary film, Salt, for which he was cinematographer and co-director, won twelve major international awards, played over 50 festivals and was screened on the ABC and PBS in the USA. You can see more of his work at Murrayfredericks.com.