essays by Dave Hickey, Eduardo Cadava

If photography can be described as the gathering of light, then the work of Richard Ross is exemplary in the pursuit of such a goal. Whether his subject is found in museums, temples or ruins, he obsessively searches out the last ray in order that the mechanism of the camera may make tangible the very essence of the visual.

His pursuit is a tireless inquiry that focuses our attention not only upon location but also upon the nature of the photograph itself – as a repository of time and memory. His strict formatting creates a taxonomy of object and place, where the frame of the picture focuses our attention upon the general and the specific, upon sameness and difference, upon the overview and the detail. However, and more profoundly, he also opens out the fermata that the photograph represents, the pause in time that is the result of the camera’s gaze, and through which his works resonate with a profound and expansive silence. Gathering Light provides us with an opportunity to explore these resonant images and the rich seam of responses that they unearth. Through their enlightening texts both Dave Hickey and Eduardo Cadava offer informed insights into the work.