Intimate Eye

Photographer Cameron Trethowan in conversation at Café Absinthe

The old woman, squirming outside the locked café bathroom, makes it in just in time. Artist Cameron Trethowan, however, is a second too late. Just as his camera is steadied, the hunched and jiggling figure shuts the door.

Trethowan, whose paintings have shown in Australian exhibitions, met with KS in his new Kyoto neighbourhood to chat about his upcoming show. His first for photos, the exhibit at Osaka's Café Absinthe will show the Japan, both evocative and mundane, that has fallen in front of Trethowan's lens. Jittering granny may have gotten away, but the rest of the country hasn't.

You've been painting for years, but changed to photography. Tell me about the switch.
I came here wanting to paint, but got a shock when I got my first place and realized I couldn't even go to the toilet properly. I moved into a slightly bigger place, but the whole idea of painting, especially on a scale I was used to in Australia, was totally ridiculous to contemplate here. I've always had an interest in photography. It's always something I've wanted to have a go at, so I guess coming to Japan precipitated that. I bought a second-hand camera and have been taking photographs pretty much everyday since I got here - kind of a documentation of my experience, but also continuing my personal exploration into abstractionism.

Have you changed the way you look at things since picking up a camera?
Yeah, totally. I'm always seeing things in terms of a photo: the composition, the play on light, the humour of situations, thinking 'Wow, I'd really like to capture that'.

Like what we just experienced.
Yeah, some obasan holding her ass because she has to wait for the toilet.

Something you formerly wouldn't have regarded as artistic fuel.
Totally. I find it's a really interesting thing to have the capacity to take photos, to go around carrying a camera and actually have the ability to document. A lot of people don't like it because they think it detracts from their experience in the present time, but I think it doesn't detract. I find it quite cathartic, having that opportunity to detach and attach, come in and out of the present. You've been a witness but you're also in the first-person.

Now that you have more living space, is a return to painting on its way?
Yeah, I never saw myself stopping painting. It's always been something I've been anxious to get back to. I've been taking lots of photos of things that will affect my work, so I see photography as an aid in many ways. Also, I've always been enraptured by Japanese tonalities and colours, so I've really been conscious of trying to document as much as I can. Eventually I have to go back home and resume my life as a fulltime artist, so I'll be using all these as resources.

You've been shooting for about a year and a half, so you must have lots.
I have shitloads of photos.

How did you decide which would make up the exhibit at Café Absinthe?
It's been a collaboration with the owners of Absinthe. They've had maybe four or five different kinds of shows, from S&M photographs to paintings of nudes. I showed them my photographs and they went “Wow, you should have an exhibition”. Miho-san, one of the owners, chose the photos with me. There's a link between them, although it's a thin link.

Because you've acquired more space and plan to resume painting, could this be your first and last photo show?
I don't think so. I feel like I have a love for photography now — the immediacy, the voyeuristic aspect of it. It also took me a bit of courage to be able to just walk around and feel okay to take photos. Now, I feel a kind of oneness with things.

@ Cafe ABSINTHE, from 23rd Aug - 23rd Sep.
Open: Everyday, 11:30am - 2:00am
1F Morisaki-Bldg; 1-16-18, Kita-Horie, Nishi-ku, Osaka, 550-0014
Getting there: Refer KS Shinsaibashi map
Email: cafeabsinthe2003@ybb.ne.jp
Tel/Fax: 06-6534-6635

Text: Rori Caffrey