Taranaki (last light), 2 August 1991,
silver gelatin, gold and selenium toned photograph
10.0
x 24.4
cm
Provenance
Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland
Acquired from the above by the present owner on 26 July 2002
Laurence Aberhart has a vast photographic oeuvre filled with ethereal landscapes, mouldering monuments and gothic churches that share as their common theme the impermanence of being. The human figure is notably absent from his images, suggested only by the presence of the photographer himself.
Whether natural or urban, Aberhart's photographs dwell on ephemerality, either by dilating time through extended periods of long-exposure, or by capturing Mount Taranaki - a favourite subject - behind a cloud or a set of waves that is soon to vanish, never to be repeated. His love of Taranaki as a subject - and the region around the mountain on New Zealand's North Island more generally - is reminiscent of the almost spiritual place of Mount Fuji in Japanese art, faithfully recorded by ukiyo-e artists, or Cézanne’s lifelong study of Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Provencal countryside.