Temporarily
(1969)
from The tide recedes series 1969–71
Medium
gelatin silver photograph
Measurements
(93.4 × 145.4 cm) (image and sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1996
© Courtesy of the artist
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
Sue Ford’s fascination with experimental techniques was evident in her first solo exhibition, The Tide Recedes, at Melbourne’s Hawthorn City Gallery in 1971. The invitation to the exhibition contained a piece of narrative prose comprising the works’ titles in a sequence. This is one of the few surviving large-scale vintage prints from the exhibition. It demonstrates the artist’s working methods, in which images are distorted, repeated and mirrored. Ford photographed the women nude in a studio, then superimposed those images with negatives of beach scenes, expressing an anxiety that people were becoming too removed from nature.
Artwork Details
Accession Number
1996.768
Department
Australian Photography
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Professor AGL Shaw AO Bequest
Physical description
Temporarily reflects Sue Ford's overriding interest in time and specifically change. The work's creation as part of the series 'The tide recedes' also highlights the artist's fluid, almost filmic working method, in which individual images are grouped in pairs, sequences or extended series. According to Ford, this strange, murky image of superimposed nudes, rock, water, seaweed, kelp and sand relates to "...the life cycle, sea life and human life..." [Ennis, p.8] and emphasises her concern at the time that people were becoming too removed from nature. As a result 'Temporarily', through its metamorphosis of disparate elements, highlights the integration of human beings with the natural world.