Di Barrett
Research concentrations home | Visual Art and Design Research Group | Critical Difference: Cultural Diversity and Regionality | Zero Waste SA Research Centre
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Di Barrett is the program director of the Bachelor of Visual Arts (Specialisation) and a senior lecturer teaching in the Photography Department at the University of South Australia, Art Architecture and Design incorporating the South Australian School of Art. She utilises an innovative unorthodox approach to the tools and medium that create a photograph. Her work is held in collections at the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia and private collections. Di is a member of the Digital Art Research Experiment (DARE) research group.
Artist statement
I do the work you bring the meaning 2010
Behind the counter they look at the objects with a fondness and say 'may god bless you my dear' to some purchasers of their religious artefacts. Little do they know that these precious items are restructured and scanned a number of times to achieve an aesthetic ethereal form. The process is therapeutic, has a sense of inner quiet that is part an investigation into an open ended sense of identity and spirituality. At present all that can be said is I do the work you bring the meaning.
Give Them Heaven 2009
'Because stained glass is both transparent and coloured, it acts as a mediumistic interface between the heavenly and earthly planes. Light passing through the glass is transformed from lux - the experience of invisible, solar light (daylight), to lumen - the experience of transcendent light, the light of divine radiation and transfiguration. The medieval perception of the duality of light as both lux and lumen was a paradox then, only to reappear (metaphysically) in the paradoxical duality of waves and particles as perceived in 20th century quantum mechanics.
The contemporary transfiguration of light into digitally encoded hyper-real visual simulations is, in principal, not unlike the medieval concept of the transformation from lux to lumen. The becoming of digitalization is, in itself, a transfiguration of all that is real and true. The new digital regime, itself a development on from medieval metaphysics, utilizes the magic of numerical integers and the elemental nature of light to create an infinity of visually oriented experiences the likes of which may well constitute a 'naturalistic' paradigm of the future - a zone in which darkness (as an absence of light), has ceased to exist.'
Quote from: Transfigured Night Exhibition Catalogue Essay 2009 (DARE) by Jim Moss, Studio Head: Visual Art History & Theory Art Architecture & Design University of South Australia
The text of immortality 2009
The realisation of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing that can be held onto perhaps a lasting possession. It's like the sky, or the earth, no matter how much everything around us may change or collapse it endures.
The Crucifiction Series 2007
'Di Barrett is particularly enthusiastic about the sheer scope of what software has to offer her photographic practice and doesn't lament the passing of traditional ways. As a photographic artist Di's career was honed on film stock and darkroom alchemy, but photography is not a category that immediately springs to mind when viewing the Crucifiction images 1, 11 & 111. Clearly, photographic images constitute the raw material of this work but the images have been "cooked" and re-constituted into surface arrangements of graphic intensity, heightened by a compositional tension between symmetry and chaos and a content dichotomy that fluctuates between the sacred and the profane.'
Quote from: Transmission Exhibition Catalogue Essay 2007 (DARE) by Jim Moss, Studio Head: Visual Art History & Theory Art Architecture & Design University of South Australia