Exhibition dates: Thursday 3 October 2019 to Sunday 10 November 2019. Venue: Australian National Maritime Museum, 2 Murray Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
The Art of Navy: Specially commissioned exhibition from the Royal Australian Navy premieres at the Australian National Maritime Museum.
For a very limited run, The Art of Navy - an intimate exhibit of original photographic works by internationally recognised Australian artist Ralph Kerle - will show at the Australian National Maritime Museum this spring. This is the first time the exhibition has been publically shown.
The exhibition was launched on 9th October alongside the official launch of the Museum's newly acquired, Navy decommissioned Tiger Seahawk helicopter. The Art of Navy ran for the month of October, and seeks to challenge traditional perceptions of the Royal Australian Navy by offering up peaceful, meditative, abstract yet natural reflections of RAN vessels in Sydney Harbour.
After a battle with depression, Kerle found solace and healing in the natural world, specifically in kayaking through Middle Harbour in Sydney. "These photographs represent for me how the power of physical movement in kayaking and the movements on the surface of the water can synthesize to act as creative inspiration freeing the mind of mental darkness to heal, recharge and inspire the inner self," explains Kerle.
The award winning multimedia and photographic artist was commissioned by the RAN in early 2019 to apply his innovative digital photographic technique to capturing reflections on the surface of the water of ships of the fleet in the waters of Sydney Harbour.
Deputy Chief of Navy, Rear Admiral Mark Hammond says the exhibition is very different from traditional maritime art. "When you first view the image, you assume it's a traditional painting of some kind but it's actually a cleverly crafted image. Appearance gives way to reality," Rear Admiral Hammond says.
Since commencing his reflections on water series, Ralph Kerle's work has achieved international recognition and has been the subject of exhibitions in Berlin, Germany (2017), Lisbon, Portugal (2015), Riga, Latvia (2015) as well as galleries in Melbourne (2016) and Sydney.
