Author(s): Paul Cox

Photography

In his photographic essays, Cato explores the harsh beauty and spiritual force of the outback. His images, fashioned from the extreme light and shade of the southern sun, have an almost sculptural intensity: a termite-ridden fence-post pierced with rusty-wire, the wind-furrowed surface of a water hole, the twisted bark of a gum tree. They are beautiful pictures, realised with great technical control, but Cato is not content to see himself merely as an 'artist' or a 'photographer'. He describes himself - in his beliefs - as an 'animist': "I believe that rocks have souls just as much as people. I think the word that has been used about my work which pleases me the most, is elemental, and it is that element of life within the landscape that to some is a deep religious experience." It is a vision that he traces back to the mythology of the Ancient Greeks, but it has interesting resonances, too, with the beliefs of the Australian aboriginals and the practice of their art.