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Many artists were witches and wizards - so says Tracey Moffatt, the Australian photographer holding her first Chinese mainland exhibition in Shanghai Contemporary Gallery.
Moffatt said she was afraid of witchery but she believed some artists really were witches and wizards - Francis Bacon, for example.
Every artist has something wrong with themselves - which makes them artists, Moffatt said. As for herself, it's from her dark side, from the dreams and nightmares, that the inspiration comes.
Moffatt, 42, is half-Aboriginal on her mother's side but her Aboriginal heritage doesn't show much in her work. Instead, pop culture, European legends and dramatic arts are clearly traceable.
Four series of her works are presented, each greatly different - "I wanted them to be, like, done by completely different people," said Moffatt.
A common element in the four series is drama. One series of silk-screen photography are about her dark fantasies. Many of the images come from Hollywood movies, including Walt Disney animations.
A work depicting a woman attacked by birds, reminds viewers of Hitchcock's thriller. Another depicts two witch-like women flying through the air with some Egyptian dogs - Pharaoh's hounds, according to the artist.
"I love painting. I do photography because I can't paint," said Moffatt. That explains why she tried so hard to achieve the effect of painting in photography.
A recent series entitled "No. 4" was completed during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Moffatt tried to find the athletes who came fourth in their races and took their photographs off the television.
She wanted to highlight the drama of sport. The moment when the athletes looked up at the board and found they had failed to win any medal was extremely dramatic to watch.
Moffatt bleached from the background any other people adding a corona around the "Number Four".
There was not much action on show and the people pictured were losers, at their most pathetic moment. But, "look at the Italian swimmer here," Moffatt said. "He is the world's number one now!"
The last series, hidden in the corner of the gallery, were her early works from 1999, "Scarred for Life". They are immobile plays. Local journalists had earlier asked whether it was truly photography that she was presenting.
"Do I use a camera? Yes," Moffatt said, "so it is photography."
They were dramatic scenes, and appearing on them were actors. Each has a caption explaining the story behind the scene.
A boy disguised himself as the mother who was not home, to entertain his younger brother. For a moment, the boy believed it really was his mother there, said the caption. It was heart-breaking, and very feminine.
January 17-February 28
Shanghai Contemporary Gallery
88 Henan Zhonglu Tel: 6335-1358
www.shanghai-contemporary.com
(Shanghai Star Febrary 11, 2003)
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