Amanda Keller MCs for her husband

Sydney art lovers packed Darlinghurst’s Stanley Street gallery last night for the opening of Dad Took A Picture, the latest exhibition from Harley Oliver.
 
WSFM breakfast show co-host, and Harley’s wife, Amanda Keller introduced the exhibition and staged an impromptu cheeky interview with the artist – much to the delight of the crowd. 
 
Among the guests celebrating the launch of the exhibition were Amanda’s WSFM breakfast co-host Brendan ‘Jonesy’ Jones and Network Ten’s The Living Room co-presenter Barry Du Bois.
 
Inspired by his own experience of looking through his father’s photos Harley was struck by the people in the images he couldn’t place and the stories tantalisingly present, yet now out of reach and lost. Dad Took a Picture explores themes of memory, relationships and the passing of time.
 
“Everyone has old family photos and as a kid you grow up with the stories that go with them,” Harley explained.  

“My dad took lots of photos and whenever we went through them he’d provide a running commentary about who was who and how their lives had played out. But now, dad’s gone. And there’s often a gap in the narration. I don’t remember the details as he did. I wish I’d written down who everyone was. So faces look out, absorbed in that moment in their life, but they are people in a photo who’ve lost their story. Their context is gone. All that remains is dad’s cryptic fragments of description. Hints of a story. How fragile we seem. Time pushes us aside. These paintings are about time, that corrosive shutter.” 
 
The exhibition runs until September 3, at Stanley Street Gallery, 1/52-54 Stanley Street, Darlinghurst.

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