The work: Ben Kelly, Water, 2020. C-type print with custom painted artist frame and museum glass, 39 x 51.5cm. $600. Courtesy: the artist
Photographer Ben Kelly describes his works as “existing free of time and place – sometimes feeling very familiar, sometimes quite foreign”. For him, photography is not merely a descriptive medium, and this aesthetic methodology is perfectly demonstrated by his work Water. The whirling spectrum of colours captured in this piece seem at first to be something fantastical or perhaps extra-terrestrial, but in fact the artist has chosen to portray the beauty of a more mundane occurrence. By magnifying his original photograph, Kelly has transformed an image of an oil spill in a puddle, the natural separation and refraction of light writ large to the point of abstraction. “Photography is great for capturing moments that you can hang on to and look back on later,” says Kelly, “but I’m also interested in its capacity to show things that the human eye cannot see or detect.” Here, his close observation of the urban landscape has made visible the scientific principles of light, exposing the many colours hidden within the sun’s rays. He has also painted the frame to match the print, extending the work beyond the two dimensional. This work is an excellent example of Kelly’s unconventional style, providing an almost transcendental view of the world.