David Perry is an Australian photographer and film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

maker, based in Sydney. During work on the production of The Theatre of Cruelty in Sydney, July 1965, he joined Albie Thoms, Aggy Read and others in establishing Ubu Films

Ubu Films

Ubu Films was an experimental film-making collective based in Sydney, Australia that operated from 1965 to around 1970. It was formed by Albie Thoms, David Perry, Aggy Read and John Clark at Sydney University in 1965. Group associates included Matt Carroll, Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce and Bruce...

—named after Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....

's play Ubu Roi

Ubu Roi

Ubu Roi is a play by Alfred Jarry, premiered in 1896. It is a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd and Surrealism. It is the first of three stylised burlesques in which Jarry satirises power, greed, and their evil practices — in particular the propensity of the complacent bourgeois to abuse the...

—the precursor of the Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative. This was Australia’s first consciously avant garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 filmmaking group.

16-mm experimental films include The Tribulations of Mr Dupont Nomore (1967); Bolero (1967); A Sketch of Abigayl's Belly (1968); David Perry's Album (1970); and Adam (1975). Ubu Films 1965-70 is a retrospective video compilation, released in 1997. Refracting Glasses (1992) is a 109-minute feature film which "uses a range of techniques (actuality and staged footage, optical effects, animation) in an essay-like construction on the theme of the historical status of the artist invoking, amongst a diverse range of references, the Ern Malley

Ern Malley

Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley was a fictitious poet and the central figure in Australia's most celebrated literary hoax. The poet, and his entire body of work, were created in one day in 1944 by writers James McAuley and Harold Stewart as a hoax on Max Harris, Angry Penguins, the modernist magazine he...

 hoax and the work of the Russian artist V.E. Tatlin

Vladimir Tatlin

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...

".

Biography

Perry underwent his primary and secondary education in Sydney during the 1940s. In 1949–54 he served a printing-trade apprenticeship, after which he worked for various printers and on farms in New Zealand.

In Sydney during the 1960s, he associated with the Sydney Push

Sydney Push

The Sydney Push was a predominantly left-wing intellectual sub-culture in Sydney from the late 1940s to the early '70s. Well known associates of the Push include Jim Baker, John Flaus, Harry Hooton, Margaret Fink, Sasha Soldatow, Lex Banning, Eva Cox, Richard Appleton, Paddy McGuinness, David...

 and developed as a painter, photographer and 8-mm filmmaker. Prior to separation, he was married, with three children. He was employed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in photographic positions and engaging privately in experimental films, videotapes and artworks.

He travelled to Europe and, from 1971-74, leectured in film and video at Middlesex Polytechnic in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Returning to Australia, he was artist-in-residence at Griffith University

Griffith University

Griffith University is a public, coeducational, research university located in the southeastern region of the Australian state of Queensland. The university has five satellite campuses located in the Gold Coast, Logan City and in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt, Nathan and South Bank. Current...

 (1975-76) and lecturer in film and video at Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education

Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education

The Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education was a tertiary education facility offering undergraduate degrees and certificates in Toowoomba, Queensland Australia, from the 1967 until it was elevated to University College status and later University status as the University of Southern...

, in Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

. He re-established in Sydney in 1980, being employed as a photographer and film/video producer for the NSW health authority and the Royal North Shore Hospital

Royal North Shore Hospital

The Royal North Shore Hospital is a major public teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located in St Leonards. It serves as a teaching hospital for Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney and has approximately 740 beds. It is the referral hospital for Northern Sydney and the Central...

 at St Leonards

St Leonards, New South Wales

St Leonards is a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. St Leonards is located 5 km north-west of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of Municipality of Lane Cove, North Sydney Council and the City of...

.

External links

• National Film and Sound Archive Keyword Search http://nfvls.screensound.gov.au/display/076/wwk770?kw=
• Zuvela D Danni Zuvela talks to an experimental film pioneer Realtime Arts Magazine, Sydney, Dec-Jan 2005