The Cleaner (Maryanne Redpath/performance artist)1987
Anne Zahalka is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, well-known for her portraits of artists and art world luminaries in staged scenes. She engages with the history of art to question how we see the world, interrogating the nature of image making. Particularly, she explores the notion of the ‘original’ artwork and of ‘authenticity’.
This work comes from the series Resemblance, which shows a number of restaged contemporary scenes from famous Renaissance and Baroque paintings. In each image, Zahalka contemporises these compositions with modern day items, for example in ‘The cleaner’ the sitter wears headphones. In doing this Zahalka is asking the viewer to interrogate the image and reflect upon the traditional tropes in art. By working within the art historical cannon, which was established over thousands of years, Zahalka questions the very nature of portraiture and the way it reflects and has shaped how we see each other and the world.
(2018)
A silver dye bleach print is a subtractive positive-to-positive colour photographic process used for the reproduction of colour film transparencies on photographic paper. The prints are made using a triacetate, polyester or resin coated paper support coated with layers of azo (synthetic) dyes mixed with light sensitive silver gelatine emulsion, which are selectively bleached out during the development process. Silver dye bleach prints are characterised by their image clarity, colour saturation and stability. The most commercially successful silver dye bleach product was Ilfochrome (which was also commonly known as Cibachrome).
