Head East

By Andrew Frost

For anyone living on or near the east coast of Australia heading east eventually leads to the beach, the cliffs and the water’s edge. There in the zone between land and water is a shifting zone of tracks, roads, paths, car parks and playgrounds, as crucial to the experience of the ocean as it is to the beach suburbs that crowd the water’s edge.

Photographer Tim Hixson’s Head East records the roads that lead to Sydney’s Northern Beaches, from the four wheel drive track that leads to Barrenjoey Lighthouse and finishes at North Head, to South Head and Macquarie Lighthouse, and numerous points in-between.

Hixson spent three years photographing the coastal beaches producing 91 final images that were stitched together into a 22 metre-long digital print. Hixson’s images have the aura of a dream, thanks in part to the plastic 35mm cameras he favours, but also because his subject is so redolent of memory and nostalgia. Hixson’s work is, he says, about a ‘shared history’ that draws back visitors and the locals to the beach.

Until September 30

Artfocus Gallery, Brookvale

www.timhixsonphotography.com.au

Pic: Courtesy of the artist.