In praise of difference, decadence and diversity

Ms Pelot-Syron’s ouvre retains the freshness of enjoying life through the eye of the beholder. Candid images of Indigenous artists, Kings Cross sex workers, the gay and lesbian community, and demonstrations all have a golden thread of cultural dissent: thinking outside the square, not blindly accepting society’s mores but querying trends and trajectories.

It is more than retrospective. It’s prospective – looking to a better future.

Each carefully crafted image is equal to any Cézanne still life or landscape – innovative style, use of perspective and composition bear a conviction that “there must be no single crevice through which the emotion, the light or the truth can escape”. Images have no dead spaces and radiate tension using high definition and strong lead lines.

‘Phoenix’ is a glossy, gutsy, high-impact Mardi Gras shot – sheer opera. It’s as confronting and cutting as the serrated city skylines under which it was captured.

‘Melanie Chillie: a portrait’ is not just a photograph; it is a story. Melanie Chillie sits on a used car seat in the backyard of the late Mum Shirl, distinguished Aboriginal Elder. Her 9-year-old, bible-black eyes penetrate our smug self-righteousness.

‘White King’ proves photographs aren’t “taken”, they’re seen. A shackled Aboriginal, brilliantly dramatised by Clinton Nain, is “cleansed” with domestic detergent as a metaphor for white supremacy. It’s at once frightening and foreboding, and a political lightning rod.

These images emanate from enormous dedication to their subjects and explain their social contexts. They are hymns of praise to difference, decadence and diversity.

Thinking Outside The Square:

A Retrospective (Photographs 1972-2010)

by Elaine Pelot-Syron

South Sydney Uniting Church

56a Raglan Street Waterloo

Tues-Thu 4.30 to 6pm; Sun 9am to 12 noon

Until May 20

Phone Andrew: 0438 719 470

Photo: Elaine Syron - ‘The Mounties Always Get Their Man’, Gay Mardi Gras, 1998

Source: South Sydney Herald April 2010 www.southsydneyherald.com.au