On the face of it, the current exhibition at the Architectural Foundation Gallery, dubbed Fare Trade, is a savory pairing of two accomplished and sensitive photographers riffing on humble, specific foodie subcultures. Some amount of appetite-whetting is involved in the art appreciation here, between the symbiotically linked series of imagery of Patricia Houghton Clarke’s Southern Californian taquerias and Brett Leigh Dicks’s Western Australian “lunch bars.”
But there’s much more to the pictorial story. For one, Dicks and Clarke have been longtime friends and allies in the cause of fine art photography, and the show literally creates an intimate dialogue between their sympathetic visual reports. From another angle, their series celebrates anti-elite epicurean outlets for the everyperson, engendering a relatively classless sense of community and access. Many strains of visual and cultural interest naturally combine in this intriguing, left-of-typical show.
Australian-raised Dicks lived in Santa Barbara for some 20 years, working as a photographer and journalist, before relocating to Western Australia with his wife, musician-poet Natalie D-Napoleon, and son, Samuel, several years ago. Dicks, whose photography has graced The New York Times, CNN, and many exhibitions across Australia and America, has shown a keen and discerning eye, whether essaying on the subject of bleak atomic age sites or kitsch-loving roadside culture.