Robert Rooney is an Australian artist esteemed for his adept conceptual art immersed with influences of post-modernism, the abstract and suburban life. This exhibition is of photographs taken by Rooney with his Box Brownie camera during his time as a student at Swinburne Technical College from 1956-58.
The images demonstrate an early fascination with childhood, repetition and seriality. They capture the innocence of Melbourne’s suburban stress, schoolyards and lifestyle, along with a self-aware consciousness fraught with danger. The photographs will be shown alongside four key paintings from that time, and a recent film ‘The Quadrangle 1956’ (2009) made with these early images.
Centre for Contemporary Photography
3 April to 19 May, 2013
Melbourne
Children, Collingwood 5, 1957, inkjet print, 14 x 21.03cm
Courtesy the artist, Tolarno Galleries and Darren Knight Gallery
