Gallery

Michael Bryant is among many Kingscliff artists working within the beautiful Tweed Shire.

He has a passion for the right brain approach to all art forms, hence the name of his art practice - Art on the Brain. His drawings that were developed using R-Mode (right hand brain) drawing techiques have intrigued both the artist and the viewing audience. His main medium however is photography.

Michael's photography has a symbiotic relationship with verse. He captures the 'spirit of the moment' as one of his contemporaries observed and then gives voice to the silent negative. Images such as What cannot be broken portray how the complexity of friendship and loyalty can test the human spirit while living within our ever increasing insular global society.

"what cannot be broken beats in the heart
what cannot be broken can never be undone"

The visual seduction of a the mysterious lone beach walker, who is called Svajone was captured on a semi-isolated beach on the Mid North Coast. Later that day words were added.

Wildly abstract notions of dreamscapes are dramatically captured at 3am in Sleep Cycles

On Photography

"My approach to photography is like working with any other art medium. If I am painting or drawing, you work with various media until you find what works. You mix and blend and experiment. You are after a final result.

A culmination of techniques, inspiration and often stumbling upon some happy accident that clinches the piece. Should it be any different for the photography medium? That is a subject that stirs much debate.

I don't place restrictions on what I do with the digital media nor if I was working with film. Since the birth of photography in the late 19th century, photographers were superimposing images and playing around with developing techniques and colour modes.

There is the film lab and the digital lab. One big difference is that in the digital lab no chemicals are involved in the developing of the image to the print process.

You cannot replace though a great first shot. Everything falls into place. The light, the composition, the moment. But I work on the basis that if I chose to experiment with the shot before print I'll do it. It is my shot!

I vistited an Art Gallery recently and commented to the director that one thing was missing. 'What's that?' he said
You have some great work here but no photography.

He replied " And there never will be! Photography is not art!
Mmm...

"The purists are like someone trapped in quicksand who won't grab hold of the outstretched hand of help.
What did the old masters use as medium?
Just about anything that was available.

Imagine Da Vinci with a digital SLR and Photoshop."

Michael Bryant 2010.

Room 302 - Limited Edition 6/25.
Available various size formats up to 48cm.
Photography
With some serious experimental enjoyment levels.
Click here for a larger view of this image

Some quoteable quotes...

"The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score.
The print is the equivalent of the conductor's performance."

Ansell Adams

"Eye, heart and mind need to aligned."

Henri Cartier-Bresson

"A lot can be told in the moments in between the main moments"

Annie Libovitz

It's what you don't laugh at that's really funny