Chris Round In Two Places 

7 Weeks 7 Artists Barometer Gallery 2016

In Two Places is a selection of Australian landscapes, taken over a period of a few years and from different series, that reflect the likely influence my UK upbringing has had on my photographic practice in Australia. The selection was curated for a solo exhibition at The Colour Factory in Melbourne, and at Barometer Gallery in Sydney.

The Australian landscape is more associated with sun-bleached paddocks and blue skies, but my approach has been to seek out the softer light of overcast days. The muted colours produced are not those of faded photographs but of a sun-bleached landscape now under a temporary grey-sky reprieve.

This unexpected approach to Australian light was never deliberate, but crept in to my work over a few years and is surely influenced by my being a dual citizen of the UK and Australia. Having spent an almost equal amount of time in each country, perhaps I am trying to find an evenly balanced sense of place through my photographs, an equal division within each image: an Australian scene with an ‘English’ sky. Consequently I ask myself this: The longer I live here in Australia will the pendulum of belonging eventually swing in favour of my adopted land, or will I always be ‘in two places’?