Darren Sylvester : photography as epigraph

The images of Australian photographer Darren Sylvester appear neutral, well-composed and unspecific about the location, untelling about the genius loci. As for space, they speak of an elsewhere which it may have never been a somewhere. As for time they are connected to an uncanny present, a time which is now and at the same time, it is no more. What it is striking in these photos is how unexceptionally and ordinary they appear. At the same time, once the gaze is caught in the detail, one cannot help noticing the compositional craft. The image is balanced, well lit, and harmonious in its colours but does not appear to seek attention. At the same time, the size of the picture is unusual. Darren Sylvester’s photography standard exhibition scale is 120cm x 160cm. 

 

The size reveals the details, and the details tell of an ordinary image that is not an ordinary photograph. Listening to Dareen Sylvester talking about his production process for “On Holiday” (Sylvester, 2010) while looking at the image produces a doubling effect (Melbourne, CCP. The image remains the same, but our perception of it changes.  The photo, therefore, slowly reveals itself not as a representation but as an opaque covering of something much deeper hidden behind the image, the last detail of a long creative process.

 

The photograph of a young man looking outside the window of a plane, while in front of him breakfast has been served,  is a full illusionistic reconstruction of a publicity shot as it was done by Pan Am for the now-defunct supersonic Concorde. Each detail in the image is real and it is not. What is hidden behind this specific photo, but at the same time fully visible, is a long work to reconstruct a dream and make it ordinary. The fuselage is a  sculpted studio reconstruction, the cup and glasses are original Concorde items acquired by Sylvester over the internet.  Sylvester researched obsessively the Concorde and acquired original drawings of the interior, the seats, and windows to rebuild a section of the plane in the studio. He also acquired an original coffee set of the plane. At the end of the process, the photo comes in its place. It doubles it, not as a spectacular event but, as an extraordinary epiphany, a null absorbing capturing the extraordinary.