An exhibition of photographs by Jon Rhodes opens at the National Library of Australia this week. Cage of Ghosts is to be officially opened by Howard Morphy at 11am Wednesday 26 September 2007. The exhibition itself opens on 27 September and runs to 25 November 2007 – more information here, but you need to scroll down.
 

 
ArtWranglers received the exhibition’s catalogue essay last night and Jon gives an eloquent overview of the history of his photographic practice, from the Western desert, to the suburbs of Canberra, to the reminders of Aboriginal occupation across south-eastern Australia. He describes how he stumbled across the book by David Brooks, The Arrernte Landscape of Alice Springs, on the mantelpiece of a local artist in Alice Springs on a visit in 1992, a discovery which shifted his approach and interest in what he had been seeing and experiencing since the 1970s.
 
It is delightful to read how Jon found and lived with books, how they played an important part in his approach to his photography. It is not surprising that as a result of his H.C Coombs Creative Art Fellowship at the Australian National University in 2006, his book, Cage of Ghosts, will be published in late 2008.
 

 
On Friday 5 October ArtWranglers will open a show of five of Jon Rhodes’ panoramic landscapes to coincide with the NLA exhibition, but more about that later…