The stark glory and brutal reality of Australia’s vast Outback is brought into sharp focus in British photographer, Christopher Rimmer’s latest body of work entitled Remnant – The Tragedy of Lost Significance. Review by Rachel Gillies
So many Brits, Martin Parr among them have often missed the mark when attempting to make visual sense of Australia. Their interpretations over the years have often fallen short being trivial, obvious or in Parr’s case, even slightly patronizing.
Martin Parr, Bondi Beach
Rimmer on the other hand, seems to understand something on a deeper, visceral level about this country and the lonely majesty of its outback. Perhaps it is because he has resided in Australia on and off for the past twenty years but regardless, the twenty-five colour photographs he presents in Remnant are, suffice to say, a sight to behold.
The Machine of Dreams, Coward Springs, South Australia, 2023,C Type photograph, 59.4 x 84.1 cm.
Large in size at over a meter long, each photograph features a relic of failed human activity which is framed centre and is dwarfed by the barren enormity of the outback which surrounds it.
There’s a poignancy and melancholy here that will be unmissable to the sensitive viewer, particularly when we learn that Rimmer’s journey through the outback coincided with the global pandemic, when it seemed for a time, that all the achievements of mankind were about to be brought to ruin by an unseeable, microscopic virus.
Silverton, South Australia, 2023.
So too in Remnant, the Tragedy of Lost Significance, we bear witness to the relics of failure, of bold ambition and yes, sometime of plain hubris too. The failed post war soldier settlement schemes, the failed Ghan Railway, the failed industrial and agricultural projects all which dot these seemingly unending, sun-baked vistas and which have all been turned to rust and ruin by the brutal harshness of the outback.
Platform 1, Christopher Rimmer, 2023, C type Print.
Perhaps in the era of irreversible climate change, the photographer is making a case for moderation in the way we conduct our relationship with the natural world and our seemingly insatiable desire to harness and consume its bounties.
If so, it is a message that is pertinent as it is timely.
Christopher Rimmer, Remnant – the Tragedy of Lost Significance is presented by Angela Tandori at Art & Collectors Gallery at Level 1/165 Gertrude Street in Melbourne, Australia from 26 April, 2024 and may be viewed online at: www.artandcollectors.com