Ikea @ Edmund Pearce Gallery Melbourne

Janina Green, Pink vase - 1990 reprinted 2012, Silver gelatine print on fibre based paper,
hand-tinted with blue photo dye, 85 x 70 cm

A photograph of a simple mass produced vase. Its form the familiar vessel which so dominates Art history. Awe and wonder at how my camera magically transcribes its existence. The rendered colours amplify its quiet presence.

Ikea installed in Edmund Peace Gallery November 28 – December 15 2012

My photographs are always about the past.

The Barthesian slogan, “this has been”, is for me, “I was there”. This series of images of a vase from Ikea consists of silver gelatin prints tinted in different coloured photographic dyes; photographs of a simple mass produced vase – its form the familiar vessel which so dominates Art History.

“Ikea” for me is symbolic of the useful homely object and of the ideal home. The vase from Ikea no longer exists. The picture of that vase stands in for the vase that once existed. The photograph can be seen now – at this moment. It will continue to exist in the future. Its representation crosses time barriers.

My photographs are always documentations of a private performance.

Every photograph records what is in front of the camera, but my interest is in the occasion and the complex conditions of the making of the photograph – first the negative then the print. Each photograph ends up being a documentation of my state of mind during this intensely private moment as well as something for other people to look at.

Because of changing conditions, every one of these prints from that same negative is different. For me each analogue print is an unsteady thing. They are now relics from another era, as is the vase.

As a counterpoint to the repetition of the vase prints, I have selected four vintage works from my archive.

Edmund Pearce is a contemporary art space dedicated to the understanding and appreciation of photography. Located on Flinders Lane in the heart of Melbourne’s gallery district, Level 2, Nicholas Building 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000

Link to exhibition @ Edmund Pearce Gallery

Full list of works and prices

Represented by M.33

The Age - Be Home Before Dark - Dan Rule

The Age Saturday 21 July 2012 reviewed by Dan Rule

Be Home Before Dark @ the Colour Factory

A few installation shots from Be Home Before Dark at the Colour Factory from 6 -28 July 2012. They include Jan Murray, (Head, VCA School of Art) on the left and standing next to Jan during the opening address is Phil Virgo the owner of the Colour Factory. 

Jan, had just returned from Documenta 13 in Kassel Germany and was struck by some of the analogies between the experience of visiting the home town of the Brothers Grimm the authors of the Grimm Fairy Tales and the nature of the work in Be Home Before Dark both troubling and forbidding. By some strange quirk of fate, Kassel is also close to where I was born. Childhood and Fairy Tales can have a dark side. 

A big thanks to Jan and Phil and to all who came to the opening event on Thursday night 5 July and a special thanks to Linsey Gosper and Libby Makgill for their great assistance in hanging the show. It is a great morale booster to have such a show of support for my work from colleagues, students and friends.

I am also happy to announce I will be exhibiting some of these works at the Queensland Centre for Photography,  Brisbane in September.

Be Home Before Dark @ the Colour Factory Gallery Melbourne

I do hope you can join me for the Melbourne showing of  Be home Before Dark at the Colour Factory Gallery. 
 Download the Media Release

Who's afraid of the dark? - ABC Gippsland Vic - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Who's afraid of the dark? - ABC Gippsland Vic - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Artist Janina Green has set out to recreate the spooky feel of darkness in the country through a Gippsland-based photography exhibition at the Gippsland Art Gallery 14 Jan -12 Feb 2012.

I enjoyed the interview with Cath McAloon from ABC Gippsland. I don't often feel that way about interviews!  It was also great to have a quick gear chat with ABC Photographer Rachael Lucas. A lovely bonus at the opening event of my exhibition. Thanks to all the team at the Gippsland Art Gallery and the whole experience was a fitting end to my CAN Inc. residency at the Cowwarr Art Space.

....Many of the photographs were taken in the paddocks around Cowwarr, where Janina was an artist in residence at the Cowwarr Arts Space, as well as in her home town of Yallourn North and other parts of Gippsland.

Janina has hand-painted a blue-tint to the photographs to give the prints a 'cool' look. She says it also adds an emotive element.

"The colour really does change them from being straight, sort of, documentary photographs of a real place. They become an emotional place now with the colour."

Click to listen to full interview.

Be Home Before Dark @ Gippsland Art Gallery opening Fri. 3 Feb 6:30

Be Home Before Dark

Installation, Gippsland Art Gallery, Lindsay Roberts Tech, Simon Gregg Curator with Anton Vardy Director looking on

Be Home Before Dark - JANINA GREEN

14 January to 12 February 2012 @ Gippsland Art Gallery

The menace of the everyday world at night is the subject of Gippsland artist Janina Green’s new photographic series, Be Home Before Dark.

Green’s dramatic nocturnes are inspired by memories of running home at night alone, along unmade roads with no street lighting, after overstaying evenings at friends’ houses. Ordinary objects like trees, tractors, cows and silos become laced with peril in strange and gothic landscapes. Green’s handmade and hand tinted photographic technique charges the rural darkness with an ever-shifting shadow-play.

Simon Gregg Curator Gippsland Art Gallery

OPENING: Friday 3 February 6.30pm by Carolyn Crossley, Director, Cowwarr Art Space
Janina GREEN Be Home Before Dark Catalogue