August 19th, 2023Rosendale exhibition: part of Ballarat International Foto Biennale

A new collection of large scale photographic works, captured in the stunning local Hepburn Regional Park and the Wombat State Forest, will be exhibited and on display at the Eastern Peake Cellar Door from August 26 to October 22.
The exhibition is part of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, a festival that has grown in popularity since its inception in 2005 – the event first held in Daylesford, before it relocated to Ballarat as the festival expanded.
The 60-day event transforms the regional city, attracts international and Australian artists, and numerous exhibitions can be found in art galleries, restaurants, wineries, bars, laneways and cultural spaces.
This is Rosendale’s third exhibition in the regional festival, having a previous offering of his Alpine photography at Craigs Royal Hotel, Ballarat, in the 2017 Biennale.
This year’s edition at Eastern Peake marks an enforced shift in genre, and a sense of optimism, emerging out of the tail end of the pandemic.
“Covid restrictions were an extended period of loss no doubt, but also an opportunity to immerse oneself in the local landscape,” says Rosendale.
“Photography – being one of a host of greatly affected industries in that dark time of restrictions, unable to work or travel to my muse of recent years, the Alpine region of Falls Creek, there was indeed a lot of time to research art, painting, photography and common tropes of struggle, that have been depicted through art for centuries.
“I wanted to bring a traditional painterly style to my photography and imbue that traditional form of expression.”
Having a footprint in the goldfields for more than 20 years, when able to do so, a full-time move saw out the remainder of the pandemic, and inspired an immersion in the local forest.
The exhibition delivers a sense of mystery and freedom, of exploring a new landscape and the liberation of finally being en plein air.
Photographs by David Rosendale can be viewed at Eastern Peake Cellar Door, 67 Pickfords Road, Coghills Creek from Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 3pm.
Link: www.ballaratfoto.org/program/photographs-by-david-rosendale/