MICHAEL JALARU TORRES | TETHER PRESENTED BY COOEE ART GALLERY IN CONJUNCTION WITH HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL | APRIL 2020
Presented by Cooee Art Gallery in conjunction with Head On Photo Festival April 2020 Cover (Front & Back) Image Michael Jalaru Torres | Blood of my Blood [detail] 1/5 2020 | illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm Inner Front Cover Image Artist Michael Jalaru Torres Source: Micahel Jalaru Torres
Michael Jalaru Torres | Oceans of the Moon 1/5 | 2020 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 84 x 59 cm “The stillness of the dark; silently surrounded by the coldness of the deep, crushed by waves of emotion, until her light radiates warmth to the oceans of the moon.�
TETHER Michael Jalaru Torres Artist
In this series of images, the artist deals with the struggles of raising a daughter while battling cancer. Torres draws on the celestial connection between the sun, moon, ear th, and stars as a visual metaphor for the perpetual bond between a father and daughter. Light, colour, and negative space evoke all the facets of the relationship, its joys, its meaningful banalities, and its difficulties.
The sun pulls me through slices of memory. My daughter’s light is the only warmth in the oceans of the moon. My responsibility is heavy, but the commitment is weightless as my soul floats peacefully towards the ancestors amongst the field of stars. ‘Blood of my blood – to protect the child is the only true warmth in the void’
Michael Jalaru Torres | Empire of Dirt 1/5 | 2020 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm “Thrust upon a pedestal, I protest my importance; balancing her needs before mine, I welcome the self-inflicted weight of expectation not blinded by morality.�
Michael Jalaru Torres | Blood of my Blood 1/5 | 2020 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm “Blood of my blood binds us; her glowing warmth illuminates the void as I give sanctuary to her evolving soul.�
“A lot of the stories I tell seem fictional, but it all happened … we just never had the media in our areas telling our stories.” - Michael Jalaru Torres
Michael Jalaru Torres | Field of Stolen Souls 1/5 | 2020 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 84 x 59 cm “Who shall invoke my memory? Through colourless blackened night, adrift on a sea of souls, forever tethered to the echo of those who remain below.�
Michael Jalaru Torres | Currents of the Sun 1/5 | 2020 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 84 x 59 cm “The smell of burnt flesh; pulsing radiation burns through my skin, echoing the poisons that have cured my organs, with only a shadow left of my breath.�
In Conversation with Michael Jalaru Torres Renata Brak & Hayley Cotton Cooee Art
Tell us about your latest series, TETHER? TETHER is a very personal story about my journey through cancer and raising my young daughter after treatment ended while navigating of those dark days.
imagine my world was turned upside down I was only 24 years old at the time.
Early 2000 I was diagnosed with NonHodgkin’s disease which is a type of lymphoma cancer which resulted in a very large and aggressive tumour in my left lung cavity which required 10 months aggresive treatment with the doctors giving me the worse case result in only have 6 months to live.
Being forced to relocate to Perth during treatment for 11 months I was excited to head back home to see how life would unfold after surviving the treatment which gave me some hope in life again, but as with live another setback was the breakdown in relationship with my daughters mother which we both separated and I had found myself in a deeper hole while waiting for results if my cancer would return and now working out how to have my daughter in my life.
Thankfully my body worked well with the treatment of both chemotherapy and radiotherapy but at this time my daughter was turning one in late 2000 so you can
Thankfully we both agreed to shared living arrangements which was the start of another long journey, but as time went by I found having Jadaja in my life and the commitment
of staying in Broome for her had giving me support as much as I have been giving her, it created a very strong bond between us which 21 years later is as stronger as ever. This series is a homage to my daughter Jadaja, I wanted to express my love and importance of her in these emotional slices of time and how the connection to her has helped me in some very dark times and her being present in my life has guided me to being the best dad I could be. The connections of the sun and moon just shows that there is an invisible connection in time and space and the journey from the earth to the stars illuminating the inevitable path form life to death, while this series is a personal one I hope viewers can relate to aspects of my journey of self-reflection. Your work often explores a personal journey/commentary. What made you decide to chronicle your journey as a parent with cancer? A lot of my early works have been about me looking outwards and using my lens to shape the story which sometimes can be unattached which is a safe way to create art and not giving myself wholly into the works, the story of my cancer days and daughter as been in my head since treatment and I’ve always want to show my daughter how much she meant to me during those times and how she saved me and gave me the strength to fight cancer but also depression and make both our lives
better which is why this series is for her. You’ve said this exhibition is deeply personal, did this make the process different than other exhibitions? Its taken me four years to work the concept down to a few images for a photo series and the timing was perfect in regards to the pandemic as we both are on opposite side of the country so it really helped tap into my emotions and memory to help shape the concept and poems, working with the subject has been very hard at times but also beautiful as it brings up the good memories more than the bad ones. Working in a limited capacity defiantly shaped the series from larger shows I’ve done in the past to more of a small and intimate series that allows more room for the viewer to read into the works and maybe express their own lived experiences that can connect to the story and prints. How has your process changed/adapted during COVID-19 self-isolation? I was lucky enough to have the concepts finished before the lock down laws were started so I had one shoot done and locked in but that also gave me no chance to do anything new to add into the show which can happen in the shooting stage but I was happy with the strong concept and images form the shoot which happen to be the easy part in this series, working on the wording
and poems took a lot longer and was very emotional to do, were I could only write in sections days at a time and trying to edit the words was harder to exclude parts to make the poem flow better. Was it a challenge to create a new series of work during isolation? I managed to get the shoot done a few days before lock out laws came into effect so I was very fortunate but then I made to make sure I captured enough for my concepts so it was a one and done type of situation which put some pressure on me to get it right in one session. After that it was a slow process of working the images to suit the final treatment and cull back the series to a smaller set of prints but still enough to tell the story that I wanted to share. What are your thoughts on displaying your work on an online gallery platform? I wasn’t expecting the exhibition to go ahead at first since the pandemic had everyone figuring out that the next 6 months would be like and I had enough work for a small show which helped so I was ready but also I wasn’t sure on how the impact of the prints viewed only online would have to allow people to connect with the works. As with the NATIVE series at Cooee and seeing the prints hung on the wall helped people feel the emotion and connect with the story I was telling but In saying that I’m sure these works will be just as powerful to view online.
Tell us about the technical process of this series. While working on the concept stage of this series I was going for a large scale series and a lot more advanced setups and composited works, as the concept stages evolved the works became more simple and working towards a positive and negative space setup with the use of coloured lights to set the tone and work with clean backdrops to focus on the subject oppose to a scene. Recently you have exhibited overseas. How was your work received by an international audience? The past 12 months since my last show at Head On my work has been showcased at the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China but also a small exhibition in Leipzig, Germany called COLLECT. Both shows had great feedback and the exposure has been great with some sales in Germany and also my prints showcased in China was great and also very curious on how the censors would evaluate my work for their audience, overall It was a successful 2019 for me. How did you come up with your titles for this exhibition? As with all my work, creating the titles help connect my work to the viewer so it’s a very important process, working in a poetic form of writing opposed to a direct description the titles help illuminate a time and space of
my lived experience with raising my daughter while undergoing treatment. Most titles are created at the concept stage while a play with words throughout the series process can drastically change as the works evolve so do the titles. What do you hope viewers will take away from the exhibition? Like every show I do I just want the viewer to have a connection to my work or to the story I’m sharing, past shows have been about some dark history of Australia and also some hard social narratives so which TETHER its more about the viewer doing their own self reflection or even just connecting with the images to themselves, look back at your past and the ones that have helped guide you or even pull you out of the darkness, it’s a story we all go trough in our lives and with the pandemic I guess being forced away from your love ones can heighten those emotional connection and the distance between us, we all need a connection. What challenges your creativity? At the moment the lock down rules have created another barrier to work around but it hasn’t stopped me working on my concepts which do take a few months’ work to lock in so I’m using the time to create conceptual work. Living in Melbourne away from Broome has its usual challenges but I’ve adapted some of my past concepts to work in the controlled lighting setup of a studio versus the location
style that started my career, I look at these works as my Melbourne style which as an artist adapting to challenges and still creating and sharing stories is an important aspect opposed to not creating at all. What was your favourite work from TETHER to create? Blood of my Blood was a very hard idea to get from my head to paper in the conceptual stage which was about 2 years working on how to start this series and took about 3 months to fine tune the concept, the idea has been in my head for 19 years since the end of my cancer treatment days. Working from the paper sketch to having an idea took awhile as it was very emotional but also the pandemic was around the corner and I was conscience that I might not have the freedom of shooting it on landscape as I first envisioned so I had to strip down the concept to make it photographable but also keep the emotional connection of the story. Using coloured light was a theme that I wanted to use in this series so it all fitted well while using the simple use of colour and light in a negative space captured more in the image that I’m sure people will connect to their own story.
Mother Earth Burn Series | 2019 A series of works showcasing the environmental effects of human development on native land and the impacts on Indigenous peoples’ connection to country. Using imagery of ghostly figures frozen in time within the landscape, these works evoke the cries of wind, water, and fire, echoing across a timeless country. ‘Mother Ear th burns as scars tattoo across her skin, her life-giving flow dried to dust. Her tears are salty to the tongue as her voice burns red. She cries out to those who are willing to listen to her song.’
Michael Jalaru Torres | An appetite for self destruction 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 84 x 59 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Protect her and she will protect us 2/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 84 x 59 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Watching our country burn as she cries 2/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Our oceans are drowning 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | In awe of her power 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper 59 x 84 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Subscribing to the destruction 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper 59 x 84 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Blood flows over falling stone 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper 59 x 84 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Witnessing the aftermath 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper 59 x 84 cm
Blossom Series | 2019 The flower is taken from her home and grows in foreign soil. She awaits her time to bloom but the light is different, the water strange to the tongue. Strangers strip old growth. The past recorded in scars on skin. Voice renewed in cold shade. Reaching for the sun but afraid of the spotlight, the flower breaks free and chooses its own voice, welcoming the flare while illuminating her new-found colour. She is now the Queen that shapes her own shadow. Her voice flows on the wind to faraway lands. Flying above similar flowers seeded in parallel and foreign worlds. They look up at her light under their own sheltered home.
Michael Jalaru Torres | Of Age 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm
Michael Jalaru Torres | Empress 1/5 | 2019 photographic print on illford gold fibre gloss photo paper | 59 x 84 cm
Artist Biography Michael Torres is an Indigenous photographer and media professional from Broome, Western Australia. A Djugan and Yawuru man with tribal connections to Jabirr Jabirr and Gooniyandi people, he is inspired by the unique landscapes and people of the Kimberley region, which feature prominently in his work. His photography draws on his own stories and personal history while exploring contemporary social and political issues facing Indigenous people in Australia. Much of his oeuvre involves conceptual and innovative portraiture and abstract landscape photography. Torres
promotes
positive
and
individualised representations of Indigenous people through portraits of people taken ‘on country’, He incorporates etching, drawing and other design work into his conceptual photographs, combining traditional and iconic Kimberley imagery within a modern aesthetic. Michael Torres drew and took photographs of the Kimberley landscape and its people from an early age. He went on to work for many years in graphic and web design. Seeking exposure to other artists’ work via the internet and rare gallery visits inspired him to be an artist in his own right. As Being a self-taught artist, he was drawn to photography as a visual medium because of its accessibility and the challenge of capturing stories
in single images. His portraits of local people from the Kimberley and Pilbara regions ‘on country’ impart a truth to the images while the reflections of natural light render them with a unique feel. His background in graphic design has seen him experiment regularly with different mediums in expanding his photography into installations and motion work, and in pushing the boundaries of how conceptual photography can be used in virtual reality. Since focusing on photography, he has developed new techniques, honing an individual and personal style, not just as printed images but as projections with accompanying narration. Integrated into some of the imagery are hand drawn elements particular to the Kimberley
region depicted in pearl shell and boab carvings, introduceing traditional elements that localise the artwork and render ancient traditional motifs anew. By ‘bending light’, he captures the motion, colour and texture of the landscape. While expanding his artistic practice during the last five years Michael Torres has participated in exhibitions in Sydney, Perth and regional Western Australia and, during 2018, his work has been a featured in the Head On Photo Festival, and Sydney Contemporary.
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