Artist Statements

WAKE by Sarah Ducker

“The world could never feel nor speak the fullness of its own bitter cry”.

David Whyte

As I journeyed thousands of kilometres into a mesmerising stillness the landscape connected me to part of an undiscovered inner world. Moments of calm reflection gave way to an atavistic panic, as I witnessed the parched and burnt landscape. My journey became a fluctuating dance of joy and despair. With each simple moment, the future that felt alarmingly present and often poignant:

A white tree rests in a dark desert gorge, An eagle dead on the side of the road. Fresh fire grounds, air still pungent with the smell of fire. Primordial rocks. The cracked dry clay of a lakebed. A camel carcass on a dried lake. The beauty of sand gently finding is form though streams entering the sea on the edge of Australia. The omnipresence of climate reckoning.

ANCIENT WHISPERS by Sarah Ducker

“Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born. Life isn’t about how you survived the storm it’s about how you danced in the rain”

~Albert Einstein

Meandering down the waterways of Pittwater, through the prehistoric rocks, I felt the brief nature of my existence that revealed with dazzling simplicity.

These ancient forms, shaped by the relentless caress of wind, water, and time, bear the scars of their journey.  They speak of transformation, resilience and the constant evolution of all things. We too are travellers through the grand expanse of eternity, here for but a brief moment in time. Through the act of photographing, we contrive a moment of contemplation and stillness .

OF LIGHT by Sarah Ducker

It is essential: “…that sunrise not leave us unmoved for civilisation depends on the true joys…nature and art and human love”

~May Sarton

The weight of living in this moment feels, at times, insupportable  and yet we manifest hope in one way or another. In the bush, I experience the radiant loveliness of this ancient landscape through  the joyous, transitory sensations it delivers. Rays of light refracted through the water are like ethereal messengers. The power of the natural world, fills us with a lightness of being.

A TESTAMENT by Sarah Ducker

“How we live cannot stay the same.  To ride the stormy waves of our heating planet, 
we must think feel and act in radically different ways ”

~Sally Gillespie

The burnt landscape stood bare before me, still defiantly magnificent in the face of devastation. A testament to the majesty of the bush.
Over a summer of terrifying fires, ferocious winds, suffocating smoke, I felt heartbroken.
Unable to come to terms with my sense of unfathomable loss, I drove into the bush. As I walked across the earth still pungent with the fire storm, surprisingly, I was uplifted by the transcendent glory of the naked trees.

In the midst of this apocalypse, emerges not just the possibility of transformation, but the insistence of it.  Sparking potential for radical changes in culture and consciousness.

GRATITUDE by Sarah Ducker

“The soul wants to walk in that cleansing air and not come back”

~Rumi

When I was in Byron Bay I saw these wondrous creations on the beach, made by crabs, silt and algae.

I had to act quickly.  The morning joggers, oblivious to their beauty, were trampling all over them.
It was a clear metaphor for our cavalier destruction we wreak on the environment.
In our struggle to survive the day, in our battle to manage our lives, we can neglect the delicate, simple joys that imbue the world around us.
In nature, I descend into a quiet place where all activity ceases.
I spend time in the landscape, in the light and dark, silence and sound, heat and cold. 
I hope my photographs can transport you for a moment into that space and invite you to reside quietly with nature from time to time.

FRAGILITY by Sarah Ducker

“ New creatures whirl in form non-existence,
Galaxies scattered around their feet”

~Rumi

Standing quietly on an ancient mountain in New Zealand, I looked down and discovered quite unexpectedly, such delicacy on the ground.  
In the bleak tundra, little parcels of exquisite beauty.
I wondered how such infinite fragility could survive in such a hostile environment?
By staying close to the ground out of the wind. A metaphor for life.
I felt a duty of care to our precious earth and I hope my photographs emote this sentiment, allowing a window Into that experience, an experience that connects deeply to our inner lives.