Aussie Goodness: Darren Sylvester

One last Australian artist for this week: Darren Sylvester, who is based and Melbourne and is a critic in the BFA photo program at RMIT. He mainly works in photography, but has exhibited in various other media.

Here is a selection of his works from the mid-2000s, which cleverly use the visual language of commercial photography to investigate the effects of popular culture on contemporary life.

Darren Sylvester, My Baby Message Me, 2006

Darren Sylvester, Don't Substitute a Life to Satisfy Mine, 2007

Darren Sylvester, Just Death is True, 2006

Darren Sylvester, Our Future Was Ours, 2005

Darren Sylvester, If It Hasn't Happened For You, Maybe It Never Will, 2006

Interestingly, this series reflects the definite trend in Australian art photography towards the highly staged. There is no strong tradition of straight photography in Australia - despite many excellent practitioners of 'street' photography over the past fifty years, these artists' work in large part resemble paler imitations of Henri Cartier-Bresson or Garry Winogrand (or, lately, Trent Parke, Australia's only member of Magnum). Things are as bad now as they have ever been - I'm embarrassed to post this, but to see just how bad, have a look here to see the finalists in this year's Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, which at $80,000 is one of the richest photography prizes anywhere (for a better idea of the hodge-podge of traditions informing contemporary Australian photographic work, have a look at the more highly respected William & Winifred Bowness prize here).

For a more pleasurable art-viewing experience, you can see more of Darren Sylvester' work over the last 10+ years here.