Staring into the Sun
Staring into the Sun
Luke Foley-Martin
Skar Image Lab
1 New Bond St, Kingsland, Auckland
28 April - 19 May 2023
Opening Friday 28 April, 4pm-8pm
Part of the Auckland Festival of Photography
Luke Foley-Martin, Eternal Vibrance
Given it is their primary source of light, photographers almost always consider the sun. Yet they seldom directly photograph it as a subject. Sungazing is sometimes enacted as part of spiritual or religious practices, or as an alternative therapy, most often near dawn or dusk. However, it is considered extremely dangerous, and impossible to look at the sun for any length of time without damaging one’s vision or going blind.
Luke Foley-Martin’s exhibition combines real photographs of the sun with hand-made abstract simulations of celestial bodies created in the darkroom. Influenced by heliography and selected works by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Nicolai Howalt and Hiroshi Yamazaki, in ‘Staring into the Sun’ Foley-Martin risks his own eyesight to explore spaces between the real and imagined, vision and blindness.
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