Sonia Payes: Interzone

Overview

Melbourne artist Sonia Payes' new exhibition Interzone draws on a theme that has inspired artists ever since one first hopped on a steam engine train: industrialisation.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution was viewed by artists such as Monet (in his portraits of railways) and Maximilien Luce as a new enlightenment, with works that celebrated the innovation and majesty of man. Payes, during a recent residency in Beijing, watched on as China went through its own Industrial Revolution. Her resulting collection of photographs paint a far more sombre and haunting portrait of how vast areas of farmland have been torn down to make way for a world of quarries, steam factories and concrete.

Payes' painfully beautiful photographs demonstrate not only how industrialisation has effected the Chinese landscape but how it has transformed the lives of the Chinese people and their centuries old relationship with the land. The exhibition officially opens on Saturday May 4, from 3pm to 5pm.

Image Sonia Payes