David Haines | Cosmic Vapour

For his first solo exhibition at BREENSPACE, Cosmic Vapour, David Haines presents three suites of works that emerge from his longstanding interest in investigating the immaterial.

Radiant God Head (Particle System) is a triptych of imaginary clouds, algorithmically generated and presented as large-scale pure pigment prints. These works are conjured out of the virtual nothing of a mathematical sequence and belong to a category of object that is purely abstract, yet seemingly real.

The Phantom Leaves comprises imagery derived from a home-made Kirlian ‘aura’ camera, originally invented in 1939 and popularised in the 1970s. The device pumps many thousands of volts into plants and flowers from Haines’ garden in the Blue Mountains, resulting in High Voltage contact photography.

The exhibition is completed with Molecular for a Star, black Stonehenge cardboard geodesic sculptures that house aroma compositions from Haines' 1,000+ library of aroma molecules commonly utilisied by the fragrance industry. Some of these smell works have previously formed rnpart of larger installation works, including EarthStar (in collaboration with Joyce Hinterding), which recently won the Award of Distinction in Hybrid Art at the prestigious European new media art prize, Ars Electronica, Austria in 2009.


David Haines , Ionone Field (Violet Leaf) 2010, pigment print, 42 x 29 cm