Artist statement: This pairing of images form part of a larger portrait series entitled Cold drinks, hot showers.
A portable portrait studio was established in a selection of the Northern Territory's more isolated roadhouses, with passers-by approached as sitters. The subsequent imagery provides an anthropological insight into the conflicting contexts representative of Northern Australia – both home and escape, adventure and malaise, affluence and penury.
Through the framing of the roadhouse as both literal backdrop and metaphoric axis between cultures, classes and identities, themes of transience and disparity are identified and explored. Individual portraits are named after the sitters’ home context and paired in contrasting diptychs, further highlighting tensions amid inconsistent and often incongruous Australian identities and ideologies.
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Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
