John Donegan 'The Broken Creek' 2022

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Stanley Street Gallery welcomes back John Donegan in his solo exhibition titled The Broken Creek.

John broke new ground as a multimedia reporter for radio station 702 ABC Sydney providing photography and reporting for the station's website and live reporting on air. This exhibition is his first in Sydney after leaving the city behind and moving to country Victoria. After 35 years as a photojournalist, he has turned his camera to the native landscapes around the waterways of Yorta Yorta country.

John Donegan is an artist with a background in photojournalism. His artistic practice searches for the beauty in the menial and ordinary rhythms of everyday life, often highlighting the seemingly unimportant, insignificant, or unseen. 'The Broken Creek' marks a turning point, whereby Donegan is exploring finding peace within nature and himself.

Allowing himself to enjoy his own company for the first time, Donegan finds old things to be seen anew. Sitting in the landscape he finds endless brown entwined with a myriad of bland greens. Unattractive and unpleasant, this landscape by the Rocks taunts him, yet Donegan finds a patience to hold still, listen and see. It is not the sublimity of landscape that interests Donegan, instead he finds pleasure in the sound of flies, scattered dead trees, and in frantic marching of ants. Imagining himself within the unexceptional rhythms of nature, this new body of work finds peace and comfort within, paying homage to the ordinary and habitual beats of life.

Opening Night Celebration | Thurs 27 Oct 6 - 8pm

View the exhibiton online