Profiles

Political satirist Bryan Dawe can trace the origin of his photographic style to a single moment 15 years ago.

'My daughter, who was eight at the time, walked in front of a projector and this image came up on the back of a white dress she had on,' said Bryan Dawe. 'I thought "wow, that is fantastic".' 


Interval 12

As it turned out, more than a decade would pass before he was able to transform that original epiphany into his first exhibition. By 2005, when his show Imperfect Illusions appeared in a Melbourne Gallery, a number of things had happened, not least of which was the tectonic shift in photographic technology.

'I could never have attempted it using film,' he explained, 'because it would have been far too expensive. It was only when digital came along that I could just play. And that's what I'm doing; I'm just playing.'

When he first started experimenting with the technique, he simply projected slides on to his models and photographed the results with his Canon EOS 20D. The approach has since evolved. 'I'm now taking photographs of various objects which I then project onto the body. In this series they are, by and large, photographs of paintings I've done.'

Intrigued, Photo Review asked Dawe if the paintings had been created specifically for the purpose of projection or if they were intended to be works in their own right.
 
'Well, my partner is happy with them as paintings' he said, 'she has them up on her walls and she was the one who convinced me that next time we might marry the photographs with the paintings in an exhibition. It's always a little hard to be objective about that stuff though, because I'm not a painter and wouldn't call myself a technical photographer either. But I really enjoy doing the painting and because I know that [their purpose is not to be] up on a wall, I'm free to do what I like. When you're free, you often end up with something half interesting.'

'It's about colour', he added. 'There are certain sorts of colours that I wanted in [the final pictures] and the only way I was going to get them was if I actually painted the paintings - or the objects.'

Serendipity too plays a vital role in the creative process. A great believer in allowing for a certain looseness to the technique and production of his imagery, Dawe added, 'a lot of this is about chance. I don't really know what I'm going to get inside the studio or wherever I shoot. I don't really know if something will work - no matter how much I think it might - until I do that projection.'

False starts and dead ends are part of the creative equation. 'I did two complete shoots where I didn't get one photograph. But on the next shoot which I did over two days, I got six. I cracked it by learning from the other two.'

For the exhibition called 'Interval' (from which the images on these pages come), he described the broad theme as being inspired by the colours of the circus and of French and German cabaret of last century. 'I really only got on top of this exhibition toward the very end,' he confessed, 'I'd shot a lot of stuff over the previous year. I was getting there... and getting there... and getting there... but it wasn't what I really wanted. When someone asked "why'd you call it 'Interval'?", I said, "because the gallery called up and wanted a title two months out!" And at that stage I was just coming to grips with what I was doing - even though I'd been working on it off and on for a year and a half. A lot of that was eliminating stuff - not actually producing anything.'


Interval 6

Dawe is at once realistic and philosophical about the nature of his approach. 'You talk to artists and other photographers, and they'll pretty much say the same thing: it's about cracking a nut. And once you've cracked it, you start looking for a new one.' Because he has a very active career as a political satirist, he says he doesn't find it necessary to question the creative process when it occasionally leads only to the elimination of something that doesn't work. 

In addition to his role opposite John Clarke on ABC TV's 7:30 Report, Dawe also writes for, and performs as, the satirical characters 'Sir Murray Rivers QC' and 'Roly Parks' with his 'Letter from Kalangadoo'. The work typically involves three or four gigs a week from around July through to November. Maintaining such an intensive schedule necessarily entails having a stout work ethic. It is something he applies with equal rigour to his painting and photography. Speaking about 'Interval', he said, 'I know that you're not going to get anything done unless you actually do it. I knew the only way this was going to work at all was with a lot of hard work, and that's what it's been.'

Asked if he could see himself combining his satirical activities with his visual arts work one day, Dawe responded, 'well I think that's possible but when people say "it's a surprise you haven't done anything political",  I say "no, it's not. This is an escape for me; away from politics and away from that sort of stuff".'

'That doesn't mean to say that you can't be satirical. There's an element that runs through everything I do, including the characters I do, that is certainly about absurdism. It's a surreal thing that I do with John Clarke, I mean two guys sitting there pretending to be who they're not!'

When it comes to the question of 'where to next?',  Dawe says, not unsurprisingly, that he has other nuts in mind that want cracking. However,  for the next year his artistic plans are straightforward. 'One thing I've learnt is just to hold back and when you're ready - do it. The idea's there and then it's just a matter of playing. So, I've decided I'm going to take next year just to play. I'm not going to do any shoots. We're all going to have a break and I'll give myself a year to do some painting and to just play around with materials without the pressure of having to put an exhibition together.'

If there's one certainty about Dawe's next move artistically, it is that it will involve collaboration. Happily his key collaborator is particularly close at hand. 'I have a partner who's been the muse. In a lot of ways it's as much her creative input to this as mine. She's a graphic designer and has a really good sense of editing; not only words, but visually as well. It's been a fantastic collaboration. I've taken the shots, but there are always those critical moments when she's walked in, sees I'm up to my neck in alligators, and says something.'

'It's the same with the models', Dawe added. 'I've now been working with them for nearly two years, so it's like being in an ensemble. I know which particular person would work better for something.' Noting that his political satire work necessarily entails working closely with others, he concluded, 'I've always collaborated with people and it's always a wonderful thing. I wouldn't want to do this on my own - it'd be boring!'


Bryan Dawe's 'Interval' exhibition opened at the Monash Gallery of Art in early December 2007. After concluding on February 24, the exhibition will move on to Sydney and Canberra. For details and to see more of his work, visit www.bryandawe.com.au.


See Photo Review magazine Issue 35 for the print edition of this profile which includes additional images.

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