The Blockhouse
pigmented ink on photo rag paper 100 x 91cm

Artist statement

Sites of cultural and historic significance dot the New Zealand countryside and line our driving routes. They mark battle sites, historic buildings and remember the lives and great losses that helped forge our histories. We stop for picnics, to give the dog a break, in the hope of finding a toilet and of course, to mark our visit with a photograph or two - "we have been here". This new group of images explores the unusual relationship we build with these places and the type of experience we have during our brief stops.

Catching Icarus

March 1 - 19 2005

Looking back at family photos we can see, sometimes for the first time, those things that were harbingers of the future.  "No wonder she became an Olympic diver, she is diving into the water in all these photographs." 

When I make photos I wonder what I am really seeing.  What clues are here that I am missing?  Sometimes I get a glimpse of a tragic future, then the terror fades and I see what was always there – a child playing in a shallow pond. 

The story of Icarus plays out the tragedy – a boy falling to his death in the sea when wax and feather wings fail him.  Wings, made by his father for their escape but melted by the sun as Icarus flies too close. 

In ‘catching Icarus’ very different images lie side by side - black and white next to colour, digital next to darkroom, old with the new.  They work together as the hint of an idea, a glimpse of Icarus, a floating feather, a fleeting moment caught in the corner of the eye or in the snap of a shutter.

Ellie Smith 2005