Ben Cauchi

Ben Cauchi was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1974. He lives and works in Berlin.

Cauchi has engages in a photographic practice examining primarily the nature of photography, the passage of time, and the psychological dimensions of viewing. The images he creates live as documents of the period in-between events, the before and the after, the ‘non-decisive moment’, and the lull between breaths when everything stops and reverses.’

His images are made using the complicated 19^th century collodion wet-plate technique. First, the artist covers a glass or acrylic plate with collodion, then soaks it in silver nitrate solution, and fits the wet plate into the camera. Immediately after exposure, an iron sulphate solution is poured over the plate which produces a unique and direct positive image on to the plate.  This antiquated technique imbues Cauchi’s images with nostalgia and highlights the tendency for all things to become superfluous with time. 

Since 2000 Cauchi has held regular solo exhibitions with Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Peter McLeavey Gallery and Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington. He has had solo exhibitions at both Kunstlerhaus Bethanian, Berlin and City Gallery, Wellington and been included in group shows in public institutions around the world. His work is held in numerous public collections in Australia and New Zealand including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the University of Wollongong; Auckland Art Gallery: Toi O Tamaki; Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu; Dunedin Public Art Gallery; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery; Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa; and Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui.