Peter Peryer's Erika: A Search for Intimacy

Abstract

Peter Peryer’s Erika: A Search for Intimacy examines the work of New Zealand-based photographer, Peter Peryer (b. 1941). In particular, it focuses on the Erika series, which is composed of multiple portraits of Peryer’s then-wife, Erika Parkinson, and which was created between 1972 and 1980. The thesis uses this series as a starting point, in order to investigate whether photographic portraits are capable of depicting marital intimacy.

Throughout the thesis, the work of philosopher Roland Barthes, and in particular his book Camera Lucida (1980), is employed in order to ground the discussion in an autobiographical methodology.

The history of marriage in western society and the history of the photographic medium are discussed in tandem, before the setting of parameters for what will constitute as a ‘marital portrait’ in the thesis. A selection of historical marital portraits by Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Harry Callahan is considered. Peryer’s series is then placed in the context of New Zealand in the 1970s, amongst important developments such as the introduction of the journal Photo-Forum, and the landmark exhibition, ‘The Active Eye: Contemporary New Zealand Photography.’ The Erika portraits are compared to Peryer’s portraits of other women, and the series is then examined from Peryer’s point of view, in relation to his wider oeuvre.

Finally, the series is discussed in relation to Camera Lucida, in a palinode which approaches the portraits from my own perspective and argues for the relevance of an autobiographical approach to the discourse of art history.