EXHIBITION - BRUT DÉSIR
Brut DÉSIR
Courtney King
A Synergy Of Hard and Soft Lines: Courtney King Photography.
Artist and photographer Courtney King proposes a marriage between brutalist architecture and voyeuristic, sensual imagery in her upcoming exhibition Brut DÉSIR. Deriving from the French language, brut, [bryt, materiau] translates to a raw, untreated sentiment that contextualises the narrative of brutalist architecture. Interlaced with désir [dezir, sensual] (implying desire that postulates lust and longing), this new body of photographic work operates at the intersection between body and man-made apparatus, to negate the polarising tale attached to monumental concrete structures that permeate pockets of Melbourne, and the rest of the globe.
Behind Courtney’s current body of work lives a decade of experience as a freelance photographer. In recent years, Courtney grew an intense curiosity of the female form as an outlet and exploration of her own sensuality, vulnerability and désir. Often photographing muses in the nude, Courtney plays with colour and light to depict divergent representations of the feminine experience, a concept that is often misconstrued under patriarchal strategies. This concept has set the warm tone of Brut DÉSIR: To synergise hard lines and soft curves through an anthropomorphic process that humanises an “inhuman approach to design.” Each diptych-like pairing of brutalist architecture and female nude collapses their individual preconceived stigma through Courtney’s poignant depiction of warm tones, shadows, and form assimilation, where body and building come to mirror each other. These notions are evident through an aesthetic approach, which in turn allows audiences to fear-not these quintessentially human structures.
Whilst the exhibition aims to revive brutalism through aesthetic value, the synergy between the female nude and the mammoth concrete structures develop something more than its visual appeal, made apparent through photographic conventions. Namely, the literature of brutalist ethics is raw, unyielding monumentality, and honesty of structure, a concept translated through the female nude, a bare, truthful, and powerful form. In other words, these two seemingly disparate subjects are brought to the surface as holding synonymous values. This is made twice as evident through Courtney’s guidance of her muse to mimic somewhat the buildings’ structure. This sentiment further postulates humankinds’ inherent parallel values to that of brutalist architecture.
Beyond structural honesty, Courtney photographs with integrity, respect and knowledge of her subjects.
Victoria Loizides, February 2022