Cricket Saleh

Cricket Saleh
Australian, born 1973

This too shall pass 2018
digital print
Geelong Gallery
John Norman Mann Bequest Fund, 2019

Geelong-based photographer Cricket Saleh draws on the centuries-old tradition of still life painting through her contemporary photographic practice. The controlled and highly detailed scenes she creates are the result of careful direction and manipulation of light, with vantage points often suggesting a narrative that is either slowly unfolding or has just taken place.

Here Saleh captures a tulip, a flower that featured frequently in Dutch still life paintings of the Golden Age that was also a prized commodity, wilting in its vase. As Saleh has explained of the work:

‘This too shall pass speaks of our often uncomfortable relationship with ageing and decay. As the flowers continue through the stages from decorative to disintegration, the hard light hits with intent of interrogation. The work hopes to be a small celebration of the process, in a modern world so eager to consume and discard.’