From a kayak on Middle Harbour to galleries in Portugal and Latvia – Drawings on Water goes to Europe

Paddle On Blue Water, The Spit, Middle Harbour, Sydney, Australia. March 4, 2014.

An exhibition of photographs, Drawings On Water by Sydney artist Ralph Kerle comprising photographs taken during kayak journeys on Sydney’s Middle Harbour, will be shown in two European galleries later this year.

The exhibition at Lisbon’s Espaço Espelho d’Agua (trans: Space Mirror Water) will be opened on 3 October by the Australian Ambassador to Portugal, Anne Plunkett. In Latvia, the Australian Ambassador to Sweden, Gerald Thomson, will open the exhibition at Latvia’s leading design gallery CREA, in Riga, on November 12.

Around five years ago, Ralph Kerle began kayaking on Middle Harbour as a way of finding a non-pharmaceutical remedy for depression. His morning kayak soon opened up a daily world of new perceptions; offering boundless moments of insight whilst connecting him as closely to nature as the indigenous inhabitants of Middle Harbour, the Cammeraygals.

‘Drawings on Water visually explores the interplay between the surface of the waters of Middle Harbour as creative inspiration and the power of physical movement in kayaking to free the mind from mental darkness and to recharge the soul with the light of new thinking,’ says Kerle.

 ‘Drawings on Water is something very beautiful and—most importantly for us—unusual, different from other photos that we are used to seeing,’ according to Vineta Stražnova, curator at CREA in Riga. ‘It is real photo art, because it is so natural (not photoshopped) and the colours are so vivid. The works have something in common with abstract art as well as what we can see and feel in real nature.’

Espaço Espelho d’Agua owner Mário Antonio de Almeida said, ‘This is exciting work, a marriage of technique and beauty and the space in Lisbon where it will be presented could not be better. With big windows onto the Tagus River, Espaço Espelho d’Agua offers bright space and an intimate relation with the river that gives it its name.’

Ralph Kerle is an acknowledged global leader in the development and application of creative skills in organisations. He is a former Associate Director of the Sydney Theatre Company and ran the iconic Melbourne alternative cabaret venue, the Flying Trapeze Café in its heyday (1978-81). He studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, majoring in dramatic art.

Dates:

3 to 31 October 2015: Espaço Espelho d’Agua, Lisbon, Portugal. Website: http://www.espacoespelhodeagua.com/

28 October 2015 to 10 January 2016: CREA, Riga, Latvia. Website: http://crea.lv/en/#!home

Further information is available at www.ralphkerlesart.com. To arrange an interview please contact Ralph on 0412 559 603.