Evidence

By Andrew Frost

As if by some bizarre cosmic coincidence photographer Chris Round’s show Evidence opens just as the streets of America’s largest East Coast cities are lashed by hurricane winds, swamped by storm surges and news websites are full of pictures of Manhattan’s empty streets.

Shot over the last few years, Round’s own photographs capture only the traces of human activity in images of empty places such as playgrounds – as in his image of slippery-dips behind a wire fence at Sydney’s Silverwater – landlocked speedboats in Cornwall, England – or a perfectly set-up café abandoned in the face of approaching storm clouds in Sanur, Bali.

The crucial point of Round’s evocative images is the absence of the human figure. Ever since the cultural rediscovery of classical civilisation in the 18th century, the ruin has been a recurring subject in Western art. From Giovanni Piranesi’s etchings of Rome in the 1750s to recent films like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 the subject of the empty city remains a potent symbol of our collective mortality.

Until November 22

Arthere Photomedia, Redfern

www.arthere.com.au