Exhibition: Lisa Garland – Raw Backyard

Lisa Garland photographs people and sites that exist on the periphery, whether socially or geographically. Raw Backyard is a series of large-scale, black and white photographs of the windswept and rugged wilderness of the North West and West Coast of Tasmania. Through her masterful darkroom practice, Garland draws out the subtleties of tonality and texture, sympathetic to the subjects she is depicting. Mostly devoid of people—yet with the trace of human presence intermittently visible—Raw Backyard creates an intimate vista of Tasmania’s primordial landscape, depicting sites seldom documented.

Lisa Garland lives and works on the North West Coast of Tasmania. She is an artist drawn to the fringe and to those who occupy it. From the gardener who allows a blackberry vine to have a place; to the coastal dweller who dedicates countless hours maintaining a fish trap. For over 20 years, Garland has documented the lives and environments of the often eccentric people that reside on the remote West and North West Coast of Tasmania. Moody and sympathetic to detail, Garland’s evocative large-format black and white images are a far cry from the average studio portrait.

Garland completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart (1992), followed by a Diploma of Education. Garland has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including the National Photographic Portrait Prize, the City of Hobart Art Prize, and Tidal: City of Devonport National Art Award. Garland’s work is held in private and public collections, including the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Tasmania, Devonport Regional Gallery, Burnie Regional Gallery and the Museum of Old and New Art.

Centre for Contemporary Photography. Fitzroy until 20 October 2019.

“I am fortunate to live on the North West Coast of Tasmania surrounded by unique spaces and people. I document ‘the find’ and my work represents people, objects and spaces that I consider unique and beautiful.

Documentary photography drives my practice, I am interested in the real, it is important that it is recorded on film, hopefully, for a lifetime. I document life. Max Dupain states: ‘photography must do more than entertain, it must incite thought and by its clear statements and actuality, cultivate a sympathetic understanding of men and women and life they live and create’.”  Lisa Garland

Main photograph above: Dome House 2018 silver gelatin print. Lisa Garland.