Fascination of the object, particularly ones changed by the combination of weather, time and often, neglect, began very early in my life. The diffused photographic images in this collection are highly subjective interpretations of the form, tone and colour of those objects and the resonant and changing meanings they project. The images have been made across many different countries and climates.
In philosophical terms ‘substance’ relates to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, and the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’. Substances are fundamental structures of reality. They are the basic things from which everything is made.
Susan Sontag wrote of our diminishing touch with our past and that our objects should “have a patina, old furniture, grandparents’ pots and pans–the used things, warm with generations of human touch, ...essential to a human landscape. Instead, we have our paper phantoms, transistorized landscapes. A featherweight portable museum.”
David Hume philosophised on how impressions and ideas are the substances. The idea of substance co-joins philosophy, art and science. The objects last far longer than their creators and our memories.
“The image survives the subject and becomes the remembered reality.”
John Szarkowski (Director of Photography
Department, Museum of Modern Art, New York, (1962 – 1991)
Review
Peter Ranyard is meticulous in his printing of this collection of his photographs from his travels and they show he’s no snapper but a thoughtful photographer capturing the ones most happy holiday snappers would reject. I fell in love with an Angel, he calls her a Lost Angel found by him at a London museum that shall remain nameless as you’re not supposed to "nick" photos despite everybody flashing away like frenetic paparazzi at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
His Virgin of Guadalupe might have me suspect he’s besotted with religious stuff, but not so, as we go from the Cotswalds to California, Mexico to London and plenty in between. Peter Ranyard is the head of visual and performing arts at Narrabundah College, has a formidable photographic CV and brings a special dollop of substance with the perfect lightness of touch to this exhibition.
By Lyn Mills-Canberra Times
19th August 2013