'The Mirror' is an exhibition of new paintings and photographs by Jarrad Martyn, at Albany Town Hall Gallery. Hailing from Boorloo/Perth, Martyn is now based in Naarm/Melbourne, where his practice explores humanity's relationship with the natural environment and the framing and evolution of historical events.
'The Mirror' investigates how images shift in meaning as they move through time, technology and cultural memory. Drawing on archival photographs connected to Albany's whaling history, Martyn reworks historical material through layered painting, drawing and digital collage. Once documents of labour and industry, these images now carry ecological and ethical significance, reshaped by contemporary perspectives on environmental responsibility.
Working across figuration and abstraction, Martyn creates compositions that exist in a state of visual flux. Fragments of archival imagery are combined with abstract gestures, textures and motifs drawn from museum displays, taxidermy and idealised landscapes. By hindering precise representation and creating ambiguous spaces, the works encourage slow, reflective viewing and invite audiences to shift between modes of thinking and looking.
'The Mirror' presents history not as fixed narrative, but as something continually made and remade, asking how inherited images continue to shape understanding of place, memory and environment in the present.
'The Mirror' investigates how images shift in meaning as they move through time, technology and cultural memory. Drawing on archival photographs connected to Albany's whaling history, Martyn reworks historical material through layered painting, drawing and digital collage. Once documents of labour and industry, these images now carry ecological and ethical significance, reshaped by contemporary perspectives on environmental responsibility.
Working across figuration and abstraction, Martyn creates compositions that exist in a state of visual flux. Fragments of archival imagery are combined with abstract gestures, textures and motifs drawn from museum displays, taxidermy and idealised landscapes. By hindering precise representation and creating ambiguous spaces, the works encourage slow, reflective viewing and invite audiences to shift between modes of thinking and looking.
'The Mirror' presents history not as fixed narrative, but as something continually made and remade, asking how inherited images continue to shape understanding of place, memory and environment in the present.