It seems we have made an enemy … of the elements
— Kate Rigby, “Imagining Catastrophe”
In Blaze, Murray Fredericks confronts us with a series of burning trees. Set against rich, graded hues of blue and black, the flaming branches are all centred in the frame. The photographs are composed with the even horizon visible from a standing-eye perspective, with a sharp contrast made between the drama of the conflagration in the foreground and the placid, crystalline colours in the background.
So primed, the images evoke a fiery theophany. The appearance of god(s) in the form of an element—fire—presents a contradictory ephemerality and scarring, a destructive force reflecting the uncertain nature of the deity. And yet, unlike Fredericks’s previous landscape series, including Array (2018–19) and Vanity (2017) (on show at the Museum of Australian Photography), the horizon features more prominently, a solid black line or sharp edge separating earth or water and sky. The landscape is given detail and texture that is absent from the more abstract examinations of light in the previous series. Fredericks seems to be making a firmer, more grounded statement of intention.
Scott Robinson is a writer and academic with work published in Overland, Arena, Index Journal and elsewhere. He is a former editor of demos journal and associate editor of Philosophy, Politics, Critique. His website is scottrobinsonwriting.com.
