Honey Long & Prue Stent
HONEY AND PRUE
For Honey Long and Prue Stent, friendship comes first and working together comes next. Perhaps that’s why their jointly created artworks work so seamlessly well — because they spring from the heart of a relationship that is intuitive and natural, rather than one built on skill and function. A woman’s best friend is one half of the same coin; they read each other wordlessly.
Now living together in Melbourne, they’ve been friends since Year 7, and at 25 years old apiece have been making art together for a decade. “Our work is the product of our friendship,” says Stent. “We’re constantly having this dialogue about things that interest us and that we’re attracted to, and a lot of the things that we do in our free time nurses our practice. We love going to markets and op shops. Ideas sometimes seem spontaneous, but I think they’ve actually been evolving over a long period of time in our conversations. Once it clicks, we will go out and shoot something in a very spontaneous manner, but it’s still very thought out in a subconscious way.”
Much of Long and Stent’s recent work has focused on the relationship between the human body and landscape. Often solitary bodies are photographed in tangled poses, draped in various fabrics and positioned on rocks or sandy beaches, or engulfed in water. It’s hard not to think of Islamophobia and the plight of asylum seekers in images of women’s bodies wrapped from head-to-toe, emerging from the sand, or curled, foetal-like, around a rock on the beach.
“We try to keep the work as open as possible so people can generate their own story,” says Long. “We want to connect with landscapes that we’re drawn to, using material as a medium between the body and landscape — it creates a bridge.” Perhaps, in these political times, nature and connection offer relief. “There is this idea that nature is passive; that it’s separate from us,” says Long. “We are trying to engage with landscape in a way that is inquisitive, trying to dissolve distinction.” They take turns in front of, and behind, the lens, and are moving into making their work more immersive by incorporating moving image and sound. “Being on location is so amazing,” says Stent. “We’re at a point where we don’t feel a photograph captures that experience.” Long adds, “Our work is about what emerges from our conversations, and we just trust that.” ››