ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
NOEL MURPHY meets Darren Clark, a photographer from Grovedale putting the real Australia in the national picture.
NAKED bodies, colours, faces and landscapes jump almost shockingly in your face – sometimes right in your face.
They’re vibrant, different and a warm; a sharply wakening assault on the senses.
Strippers and pole dancers, pearlers and farmers, Goths and punks, Aborigines, ballerinas , brooding inner-city scapes, rugged Outback vistas – all surrender their psyche, their heart, through the brooding lens of Grovedale photographer Darren Clark.
National and state libraries and museums around Australia are hungrily gathering Clark’s work. International publisher Harper Collins has engaged him to capture Australia’s cattle industry.
The poignancy and beauty of his soul-searching images is striking. In every picture a vivid expression of humanity tugs at the heartstrings and sparkles with life that ventures into dark places to expose the beauty of Australia.
Clark’s odyssey through sex clubs, Aboriginal communities, cattle stations, ballet studios, pubs, brothels, deserts, plains and woodlands has returned a pictorial and personal insight few will ever experience.
The journey for Clark has been redemptive, sometimes savaging and rewarding – and with no sign of letting up.
“I try not to do too much research, I just go there,” he explains of his ability to insinuate himself into place and person alike.
“Once you learn your skills, how to make beautiful photos, it comes down to people skills and just allowing them be …”
Read more of Noel Murphy’s story in the latest GC Magazine.
