Wayne Barrar

Photographer Wayne Barrar was born in Christchurch in 1957. He completed a BSc at the University of Canterbury in 1979 and taught science at secondary school in Whanganui for a number of years while developing his photographic practice.

Barrar gained a PGDipFA from the University of Auckland (1996) and an MDes from Massey University (2005). He is currently Associate Professor at the School of Fine Arts at Massey University in Wellington.

Barrar's subject has primarily been the New Zealand landscape, and his approach strongly influenced by the 1970s American topographical tradition. While his images are often striking, he is less interested in the ‘untouched nature’ of the tourism advertisements and more interested in the relationship between culture and nature, and in particular, the marks human beings make on the landscape.

In recent years he has photographed landscapes harnessed to serve human needs and demands in Australia, the United States, and Iceland. His concern for the environment influenced the non-landscape-based series ‘An Immortal Double’ which looked at issues around genetic modification, and can be seen in his recent work investigating coy carp.

2001 saw the release of ‘Shifting Nature’, a survey of his work to date, and in 2010 he exhibited the series ‘An Expanding Subterra’ in which he explored man-made underground spaces around the world and published the associated catalogue.

His works have been exhibited in numerous public galleries around New Zealand and internationally, and his works are held in public galleries, private and corporate collections in New Zealand and abroad.

- images courtesy Milford Galleries (www.milfordgalleries.co.nz)