Paul Batt

Photographs of Abandoned Sofas in Suburban Australia

in featureshoot.com

by Alison Zavos

Paul Batt is currently a PhD candidate in Fine Art (Photography) at Monash University, Melbourne, where he is also a Sessional Photography Lecturer. Paul is a graduate of both the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) photography departments. His work has been exhibited work widely throughout Australia, received several awards and grants and has had work featured in a number of publications including Photofile and ‘Look – Contempoary Australian Photography Since 1980′. He writes:

‘These images represent a series documenting and cataloguing the subtle variations of abandon sofas and couches in the suburban environment. My primary interest in the ‘Abandon Series’ is the apparent state of flux and contrast the subjects exist in. These once intimate, comfort giving, interior objects have become surreally out of place, in the exterior world.

Kevin Bauman

Small Churches

in featureshoot.com

by Paul Batt

A large part of the irony to Kevin Bauman’s series on ‘Small Churches’ is that they are exactly that. Small. The idea of a church, congers thoughts of palace like structures and grand cathedrals. Buildings whose lavish golden interiors are there, to act as the earthy embodiment of the divine and the conduit connecting worshippers to it. Bauman’s churches are the opposite and possibly more honest as a result. These houses of worship are quite literally, former houses or old stores, some are converted workshops but all are run down or abandoned. Often the only signifier distinguishing the building from its own past is the presence of a crudely painted sign and its promise of refuge.