Positions
Ross Coulter

Gertrude Contemporary was pleased to present Positions, a photographic series by Gertrude Studio Artist Ross Coulter at Gertrude Glasshouse.

Produced in 2013, Positions explored representations of sexuality and the body in a series of six large-format prints depicting pornographic videos projected onto the naked figure of the artist.

The hyper-saturation of these prints conveys a similar quality to Sittings, a series of 1970s nude portraits of men and women in garish colours and interior settings by Greece-born American photographer, Lucas Samaras.

Coulter describes Samsaras’ work as having a conflicting affect upon the viewer. He says, ‘I feel a strange attraction and repulsion to these photographs of Samaras. The artist is literally lurking in the shadows of his work, looking at me as I look at the nude subjects in his photographs.’ In Coulter’s Positions, the subject is abstracted, with both the figure and the space behind being flattened, as if to be collaged, screened out and shut off.

Ross Coulter is a Melbourne-based artist who primarily uses photography and video in his practice. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2007 and a Master of Fine Arts in 2014, both at The Victorian College of the Arts. He has exhibited widely in a variety of artist-run initiatives and public institutions in Australia and has received a number of awards and grants, including the George Mora Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria. As part of this fellowship project, Coulter coordinated the release of 10,000 paper planes into the Domed Reading Room of the State Library of Victoria in a multi-camera video work and still photographic performance.

Coulter had recently concluded a two-year residency at Gertrude Contemporary (2014-2016). His forthcoming series Audience was published as a photo book in 2016 as well as being exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2017.

For more information about Positions, please visit Ross Coulter's website.