The photographic endeavors of Brett Leigh Dicks — a longtime Independent contributor who divides his time between Santa Barbara and Fremantle, Australia — have a clever way of finding depth and poetry in everything from decommissioned prisons to old aircrafts. He’s in town to do an artist talk and photography pop-up titled “Time and Again,” at Patricia Clarke Studio in Carpinteria on June 25, as part of the Facing Ourselves Presents project focused on meaningful conversations.
Dicks has recently turned his lens toward the eccentric underground desert town of Coober Pedy, Australia, resulting in an exposé for the New York Times, so expect to hear about that work, as well his recent series on working-class “lunch bars” (a uniquely Western Australian working-class phenomenon), and documentation of remote outback communities (a project for the State Library of Western Australia), as well as his current work as artist-in-residence at the Museum of the Goldfields in Kalgoorlie, Australia, where he’s working on a repeat photography project (the practice of taking multiple photographs of the same subject, from the same location, at different times) based on the Western Australian Museum’s historic Dwyer & Mackay Collection.
I can say from personal experience that Dicks is always an engaging conversationalist, and Patricia Clarke is the consummate hostess. This is sure to be an interesting and meaningful discussion of the role of art, photography, and the documentation of life.
This free event takes place on Sunday, June 25, from 3-6 p.m. at Patricia Clarke Studio (410 Palm Ave., #A-18, Carpinteria). For more information or to RSVP, visit facingourselves.org/events/brett-leigh-dicks.
