James Makin Gallery
89 Islington St, Collingwood VIC 3066
6pm for 7pm auction
View artworks prior to the auction at James Makin Gallery
12 – 5pm Tuesday 4, Wednesday 5 & Thursday 6 June 2024.
For enquiries please contact:
Lara Goode, Development and Sponsorship Coordinator
Lara Goode 0434 602 620
Michael Corridore's (1962- ) practice is multi-disciplined and includes photography, directing film content and more recently scoring music for motion projects.
Over the past twenty years, his works have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia, Europe and the USA, and are held within public collections including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gold Coast Art Gallery, Queensland; Haggerty Museum of Art, USA, as well as private collections in Austria, Australia, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and the USA.
Career highlights include winning the Aperture Foundation’s Portfolio Prize and the subsequent exhibition of the Angry Black Snake series at their New York gallery in 2010. In 2014 work from his Transient series of abstract cityscapes were chosen for a special issue of TAR magazine curated by film director, David Lynch and one of his works won the PHOTOBOOK Melbourne Photo Award in 2016.
These musings began after learning that the magnetic north and south poles are moving. At the southern end, the magnetic south is drifting from Antarctica towards Australia, and diametrically opposed in the north above Canada. So, what happens if the magnetic poles keep drifting. Aurora borealis and its southern counterpart, Aurora Australis, are evidence of Earth’s magnetic field at work. The spectral colours that we see occur when charged particles stream from the sun during solar flares and penetrate Earth’s magnetosphere at the extreme ends of the magnetic poles. Will the spectral light show shift into unfamiliar latitudes? And if the magnetosphere falters, will organic matter float away into space, leaving behind built structures fixed to the surface?
Michael CORRIDORE
born Australia 1962
Transient - 5032 2023
from the series Transient
pigment ink-jet print
70.0 x 100.0 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: 1/3
estimate: $2,500 – $3,500
Geoffrey Goddard (1966- ) is an internationally awarded art director, designer, photographer and author.
A finalist in the 2023 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, 2023 & 2017 Head On Landscape Prize, and the 2020 Perth Centre for Photography CLIP Awards, Goddard has held several solo exhibitions in Australia and has been exhibited internationally in China, New Zealand, India, France and the United States.
His book ‘Australian Art Deco Hotels’ was a 2020 Australian National Trust Heritage Awards Finalist. He has a Bachelor of Visual Art from the University of South Australia, majoring in Photography and Digital Imaging.
Flat hyper-real colours and linear perspective combine to form geometric, abstracted landscapes that exist somewhere between reality and illusion, creating a sense of ambiguity for the viewer between the real and the constructed.
Geoffrey GODDARD
born Australia 1966
Mid-mod yellow 2023
from the series Ambiguous realities
pigment ink-jet print
80.0 x 60.0 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: 2/10
estimate: $1,500 – $2,500
Janet Laurence is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Bridging ethical and environmental concerns, Laurence’s art considers the inseparability of all living things and represents, in her words, 'an ecological quest'. Reflecting on the mutability of nature, science, memory and loss, Laurence creates immersive environments offering us a deeply experiential and cultural relationship to the environment.
For more than 35 years, Janet Laurence’s practice has been driven by the fragility of the natural environment. Across photography, sculpture, video and installation, she explores the deep interconnection of life forms and ecologies to produce work driven by themes of alchemical transformation, history and perception that is distinctive, complex and beautiful. Laurence is MAPh's 2024 Luminary artist and her exhibition 'Tears of dust' is part of MAPh's PHOTO 2024 festival suite of exhibitions that explore our 'Enviromental futures' (1 March - 26 May 2024). Discover more about the inspiration behind her practice through the accompanying publication.
The 'garden' is a metaphor that expresses Janet Laurence's view about the cosmos, in which all living creatures converse, engage and communicate through an intricate network. The garden is a zone in which all living things can traverse. Your Verdant View layers the organic forms of the rainforest with the magnified gaze of a scientific observer. Moving between sublime awe and analytical dissection, Laurence connects disparate ways of engaging with the natural world. As the artist says, 'through my work, I try to create a space somewhere between evidence and imagination.
Janet LAURENCE
born Australia
In your verdant view 2020
Duraclear print on Shinkolite acrylic
4 panels, 30 x 28 cm each
courtesy of the artist and ARC ONE Gallery (Melbourne)
edition: 1/3 + A/P
estimate: $10,000 – $12,000
Kiron Robinson (1975- ) is an artist who lives and works out of Naarm/Melbourne. He loves photographs but does not trust them. He uses a number of photographic strategies across different mediums to interrogate the image. His work circulates around a set of ideas that he recognises in photographs – doubt and belief - and the relationship between these two states for their own existence.
Robinson has exhibited his work widely. He was recently included in the National Gallery of Victoria’s 'Melbourne Now' exhibition. Robinson is co-curating an exhibition at MAPh with fellow artist Izabela Pluta entitled 'Built Photography' from 8 June 2024. MAPh has also commissioned a new body of work that will be acquired into MAPh's collection from both Robinson and Pluta which will be shown inconcert with 'Built Photography', contextualising their practice and how they employ similar strategies in constructing their work. Robinson's work is held in public and private collections and he is represented by Sarah Scout Presents.
Blutac on flowers is one of 42 images from the series We told ourselves we needed separate beds to sleep which was originally shown at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in 2015.
The image is formed through a process of flattening, via scanning, adjustment, addition and re-photographing. New relationships are forced. The surface reflects my anxiousness as the space that is both image and image of image.
Kiron ROBINSON
born Bangladesh 1975; arrived Australia 1983
Blutac on flowers 2015
from the series We told ourselves we needed separate beds to sleep
pigment ink-jet print on Baryta paper
42.0 x 31.0 cm
courtesy of the artist and Sarah Scout Presents (Melbourne)
edition: 1/5 + 2AP
estimate: $1,500 – $2,500
Ayman Kaake (1987– ) is a queer Lebanon-born Australian photo-media visual artist currently based in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs. His practice encompasses various mediums, including contemplative photographic portraiture, video works, and sculptures. Through his art, Kaake delves into the complex themes of diasporic melancholy, the agony of exile and socio-political subjects, utilizing contemplative portraiture and sculptural, styled poses.
‘Your belief is a belief; my existence is a reality’ – Divina De Campo, drag queen. Homosexuality is still a crime in at least 74 countries, 13 of which impose death by public stoning as a penalty. 99 names is a non-apologetic work for the double standard of society that we live in. An instalment which does not seek approval to accept homosexuality. This series is a testament to how we have been manipulated for years by hypocritical acts of atrocity whilst believers loudly quote from their holy books in the name of religion. They connect religion with politics to have control upon us. To fit their shiny image of love whilst criminalising the act of love.
This work was presented as a large scale pigment ink-jet print on fabric (210.0 x 140.0 cm) in the 2023 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize where it received an honourable mention.
Ayman KAAKE
born Lebanon 1987; arrived Australia 2011
The rug almost flew off 2023
pigment ink-jet print on cotton rag
90.0 x 60.0 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: 1/3
estimate: $3,000 – $4,000
Jane E Brown (1967– ) is an award-winning photographer with an established darkroom practice and an interest in nineteenth-century photographic processes. A recipient of an Art and Australia/Credit Suisse Contemporary Art Award, Brown’s work is held in the National Gallery of Victoria; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Ian Potter Museum of Art; Horsham Regional Gallery and Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida, USA. Brown’s interest in photography extends to her role as collection manager of a photographic archive at the University of Melbourne where she also lectures on photographic history and conservation. In 2023, Brown spoke by invitation at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, on photomechanical prints. Born in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, she lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. She has been shortlisted in the Bowness Photography Prize multiple times including in 2023 for her work A Crystal Palace (2022).
In this work we see the camera respond to the lucent mystery of reflected water, while enigmatic forms metamorphose in the liquid chemistry of the photographic darkroom. The series, Into Something Rich and Strange, takes its title from Shakespeare’s The Tempest – a fable with its own themes of magic and illusion. I develop and print all my own photographs, typically using silver gelatin on fibre-based paper. I consider the ‘magic’ of the darkroom integral to the way I work. The darkroom and photographic processes augment my interest in photography’s materiality and presence. I encourage the viewer to consider the work’s surface – the paper, the chemistry and the alchemy of photography.
Jane E BROWN
born Kuwait 1967; arrived Australia 1972
Untitled 2022
from the series Into Something Rich and Strange
gelatin silver print
61.0 x 50.8 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: 1/6
estimate: $2,000 – $3,000
Amos Gebhardt brings a cinematic force to large-scale moving image installations and photography, collaborating with performers, choreographers, and sound artists. Gebhardt’s sustained practice of visually rich work is epitomised by a courageous commitment to agitating dominant narratives around marginality, representation, queerness and more than human ecologies.
In 2022 Gebhardt was awarded the prestigious Bowness Photography Prize for the photograph Wallaby (2022), and was a finalist in the National Photography Prize at MAMA and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, HOTA in the same year. The video installations Lovers and Evanescence (2018), featured at the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Represented by Tolarno Galleries, their work is held in both public and private collections internationally.
The series Night Horse examines the powerful currents between horses as they negotiate consent and desire during mating season. The work places the viewer inside the kinetic swirl of the herd where hooves, flicking tails and outstretched limbs offer an intimate encounter across the species divide. The horses forge a unique muscular choreography before merging with the dusty atmosphere. In observing these complex dynamics, Night Horse challenges the dominant anthropocentric view, capturing the undeniable force of non-human narratives. The image titles evoke the night, the horse, or the universe, interweaving the anatomical with the universal, the body with the stars.
Amos GEBHARDT
born Australia
Crest 2019
from the series Night Horse
pigment ink-jet print
122.0 x 163.0 cm
courtesy of the artist and Tolarno Galleries (Melbourne)
edition: 1/5
estimate: $8,500 – $10,000
Sonia Payes is a Melbourne based artist who explores the intricate connections between humanity and the environment. Her art delves into personal experiences, extending its reach to universal concerns. Payes embraces hybridity, merging photography with digital media, animation and sculpture to challenge traditional boundaries. Her work is held in collections in Australia, China, London, Belgium, Switzerland and the US. Payes's exhibition Renaissance: A journey of transformation (1 March 2024 – 1 March 2025) is part of PHOTO 2024 international photography festival and as taken over MAPh's building, atrium and sculpture park. Her photographic work and sculptures will be on exhibition until 1 March 2025.
Notable public exhibitions include the McClelland Gallery, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery; University of Western Australia, The International Photography Festival 2024; the Museum of Australian Photography (2017 & 2024), International showcases include Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre, The Southeast Museum of Photography Florida, Los Angeles & Spain. She has been shortlisted in the Bowness Photography Prize multiple times including for this work.
The Sentinel of Tomorrow, delves into the urgency and responsibility of protecting our planet, inspired by guardianship over future gateways. Through a blend of abstract and realistic techniques, it invites viewers into a narrative of vigilance and proactive care. Payes' work embodies a conviction in humanity's resilience and adaptability, reflecting on our collective role in Earth's ongoing transformation. It's a call to action, urging us to safeguard our shared future with strength, purpose and determination, encapsulating poetic visions for a sustainable world.
This work was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Sonia PAYES
born Australia
The sentinel of tomorrow 2023
chromogenic print, timber box frame and non-reflective glass
120.0 x 89.0 cm
courtesy of the artist and Scott Livesey Galleries (Melbourne)
edition: 1/3
estimate: $8,500 – $9,500
Alison Bennett (1968– ) is an artist and academic whose creative investigations consider the implications of technologies intersecting with theoretical paradigms. Their practice is situated in ‘expanded photography’ where the boundaries of the medium have shifted in the transition to digital media and become diffused into ubiquitous computing. Their work has been shown at international venues such as Musée du Louvre, Kunstmuseum Bonn, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, featured on Australian Story, New York Times, Mashable, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Motherboard, Creators Project, ABC TV News, Artlink and Guardian. Dr Bennett is Associate Dean, Photography, RMIT School of Art and has been shortlisted multiple times in the Bowness Photography Prize.
Emerging out of the suspended time of Melbourne lockdowns, I found myself attuned to the contained glowing pulse of plants. Whilst I was looking at flowers, I felt plants were also participating in the encounter. Rendered as point-cloud images via photogrammetry, these complex structures resonated as vibrant matter, exposing both the ephemeral and partial nature of the digital image and the alive magic of vegetal matter. My work sides with the non-human, seeking to create encounters that collapse the spectral, floral and machinic.
This work was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Alison BENNETT
born Australia 1968
vegetal/digital (waratah) 2022
from the series vegetal/digital
photogrammetry point-clouds, giclee print on platine fibre rag
87.0 x 62.0 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: 1/10
estimate: $1,500 – $2,500
Gerwyn Davies (1985– ) is a queer photographic artist and costume maker based in Sydney Australia. Gerwyn completed a PhD at the University of New South Wales (Art and Design) exploring the aesthetics of camp, photographic self-representation and the political potentials ofqueer in/visibility. Gerwyn completed a Bachelor of Photography (1st Class Hons) at the Queensland College of Art and has worked as a member of academic staff, lecturing across photomedia at Griffith University, University of New South Wales and the National Art School Sydney.
While conventionally the photographic portrait is anticipated to reveal something of a subject to a viewer, I am instead drawn to the potentials of queer representational in/visibility through the performance of photographic dis/appearing acts. My figure is routinely buried beneath costumes whose embellished surfaces mutually entice yet resist interrogation while the image terrain is manicured, foreshortened, made to emit an implausible glow. In the Altavista works, I explore ways to productively imbed AI imaging technology into my existing practice, fabricating simulations of the natural world that then serve as digital habitats that house my figure. These works reflect my ongoing interest in photographic fictions, synthetic selves and the drawing out of tensions between surface and depth, natural and artificial in the photograph.
This work was shortlised in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Gerwyn DAVIES
born Australia 1985
Altavista (Alpine) 2023
pigment ink-jet print
95.0 x 125.0 cm
courtesy of the artist, Jan Murphy Gallery (Brisbane) and Michael Reid Gallery (Sydney and Berlin)
edition: 1/5
estimate: $4,000 – $5,000
Danica Chappell (1972–) is a Melbourne-based visual artist who completed a Bachelor of Fine Art with honours (2005) and a Master of Fine Art (2012) at the Victorian College of the Arts. She began exhibiting her work in 2004 and has since exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. Her practice involves the use of cameraless photography and she experiments with a range of analogue photographic processes. Despite their photographic nature, her works are produced in a way that is more akin to painting and performance. They belong to the artistic tradition of visual abstraction. (2017)
Chappell has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally, with her work being exhibited at MAPh and is held within our collection. She has been shortlisted for the Bowness Photography Prize mulitple times.
Surface measure: threshold device (unique state variation) is a ‘working draft’ that informed the final exposure of a panel that sits within a larger body of work exhibited in NGV’s Melbourne Now. The guiding influences were directly informed by the geometry found in the ‘intrafilament’ site of The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia; an interstitial annex where the architecture gives space for the body and mind to intermesh interior with exterior. The two-pronged title reflects strategy and process undertaken while negotiating the site of reference and the haptic resonances of making. The darkroom is understood to be the middle process in photography, a stage for reproduction between the lens of a camera and the print. The cameraless photograph is generative and embraces slippages that naturally occur when an object is constructed. I navigate the processual history of photography, collapsing and expanding the interventions that can be applied using a darkroom as an apparatus. In this way the test-strips and drafted works that precede a final exposure hold their own unique state to colour, density and form.
This work was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Danica CHAPPELL
born Australia 1972
Surface measure: threshold device (unique state variation) 2023
from the series Surface measure: threshold device
chromogenic print
148.0 x 108.0 cm
courtesy of the artist and Sous Les Etoiles Gallery (New York)
edition: 1/1
estimate: $5,000 – $6,000
Patricia Casey (1962– ) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Sydney. She has been a practicing artist for 20 years and completed a Master of Visual Arts (Research) in 2009 from Sydney University. Casey has exhibited internationally and throughout Australia.
Casey’s oeuvre reflects a constant search for meaning and a desire to understand the phenomenology of the lived body in the landscapes and the links between external and internal landscapes. Casey is an ardent researcher and art maker who has a commitment to contributing to the wider community by way of public presentations, published papers and engagement in arts education in Australia and internationally.
Casey has received a number of awards including the inaugural Head On Photographic Prize. She has been a finalist in numerous prestigious art prizes including the Bowness Photography Prize, Australian Photography Awards, Lake Prize, Wyndham Prize, National Photography Prize and the Sir John Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW. Her work is included in collections internationally and within Australia, including the Macquarie Bank collection, Frasers Property Group and the Gutman collection
Chronic illness is never welcome, like a weed it will spring up despite our best efforts. Some are exotic species that have become out of control – pests that take over the landscape. On close examination however, weeds have a unique beauty and can enrich the soil. I have been collecting weeds on my daily walks, freezing them in ice, closely examining them in the suspended moment. As a chronically ill person, my world can appear static, yet my engagement is still present – on a scale that is smaller and yet simultaneously more expansive, despite the weed that is my illness.
This work was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Patricia CASEY
born Australia 1962
Still life with weed 01 2023
from the series Swallow the rain
chromogenic print
70.0 x 70.0 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: AP
estimate: $3,000 – $4,000
Tom Blachford (1987– ). Working at the intersection of long exposure photography and exploration of the built environment Blachford’s Fine Art Photographs seek to transform predictable and known environments into surreal and dreamlike worlds. Obsessed with capturing the moments of clarity, colour and mystery that exist just beyond the limits of our human perception Blachford explores the ability for his camera to bridge our worlds to dark worlds beyond our reach.
Captivated by architecture, not only for its sculptural forms, Blachford’s images of homes, towns and suburbs act as the the stage for unwritten narratives that implore the viewer to script their own drama happening behind the walls of each scene. Blachford’s work has been featured widely in architectural, art and design press around the world and has been exhibited and collected by art lovers across Australia, Europe and the USA. Blachford has been shortlisted in the Bowness Photography Prize multiple times including for this work.
Now in its sixth series Midnight modern (2013–23) explores the architecture of Modernism, particularly in Palm Springs, California captured using only the light of the full moon.
Intended to act as the stage for an unspoken narrative, the images invite the viewer to script the story going on behind the walls of these architectural masterpieces.
The time of capture becomes increasingly ambiguous, with the intention for the viewer to lose their sense of whether the images might be captured during day or night, in 1958 or 2023. The questions become not where, but when and who.
The addition of period accurate vintage cars adds another dimension to the images.
This work was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Tom BLACHFORD
born Australia 1987
Kaufmann's mistress (arrival) 2023
from the series Midnight modern
pigment ink-jet print
112.0 x 170.0 cm
courtesy of the artist
edition: AP
estimate: $6,000 – $8,000
Tamara Dean (1976– ) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with photography, installation and performance to explore the relationship between humans and the natural world. She studied at the College of Fine Arts and the University of Sydney before beginning her photographic career as a photojournalist. Dean worked for The Sydney Morning Herald for over 15 years then moved progressively towards a sole focus on her own artistic practice. She has exhibited her works in Australia and overseas, with solo shows at the Adelaide Biennale in 2018 and at Ngununggula Gallery of the Southern Highlands in 2020–21. Her work is included in public collections such as the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia as well as MAPh. Dean won the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize for her work, Endangered in 2019 and the Olive Cotton award in 2011. In 2022 Dean held her first survey exhibition, Leave only footprints, at MAPh.
Love and fertility from my 2023 series The suspended moment draws inspiration from 17th-century Dutch vanitas, known for their rich symbolism and intricate detail.
The symbolism within Love and fertility gently references the omnipresent threat and anxiety of natural disasters. The formal composition of the everyday is literally flooded.
A contradiction arises within the term ‘still life’, as a profound sense of transience permeates the image. Gravity relinquishes control as the floral arrangement breaks free, taking on a life of its own.
This work was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Tamara DEAN
born Australia 1976
Love and fertility 2023
from the series The suspended moment
pigment ink-jet print
100.0 x 75.0 cm
courtesy of the artist and Michael Reid Gallery (Sydney and Berlin)
edition: 1/6
estimate: $8,500 – $11,000
Will and Garrett Huxley (Aus/Gambaynggirr/Yorta Yorta) are Melbourne-based collaborative performance and visual artists, who have been performing together since 2014. They present commentary on gender identity and spectacle across the visual arts, performance and entertainment. They have performed and been included in group exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; HOTA Permanent Collection, Gold Coast; Geelong Arts Centres, Geelong; MONA, Hobart; Art Gallery of West Australia, Perth; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The Huxley's are the recipient of MAPh's Wai Tang Commissioning Award, and a new body of work will be exhibited at MAPh in 2024.
Derek is a self portrait from Bloodlines, a multi-artform series honouring legendary artists silenced by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s. Artists that were formative heroes to us and countless others. Shining beacons who helped shift the worlds of queer art and culture into new realms. This work honours Derek Jarman, multi-disciplinary artist whose art presented a searing vision of homosexuality and creative fearlessness. Due to AIDS-related illness Derek’s vision was fractured by the colour blue. With this work we wanted to challenge ourselves by channelling his bravery and his unrepenting portrayal of queer sexuality and the history of the male nude in queer art. This work is a testament to his vision, his beauty and his bravery.
This is the same image that was shortlisted in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize, which was printed at a slightly different scale.
Garrett HUXLEY
born Australia 1973; Gumbaynggirr / Yorta Yorta / Aus
Will HUXLEY
born United Kingdom 1982; arrived Australia 1988
Derek 2022
from the series Bloodlines
pigment ink-jet print
110.0 x 100.0 cm
courtesy of the artists and Murray White Room (Melbourne)
edition: 3/6
estimate: $2,000 – $3,000
Anne Zahalka (1957– ) completed an Art Certificate at East Sydney Technical College in 1976, a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, a Post Graduate Diploma at Sydney College of the Arts in 1989 and a Master Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales in 1994. Zahalka has developed a significant reputation for staging photographic compositions that reference and critique visual culture, particularly Australian visual culture and the history of art. Her work has been collected by all major museums in Australia and she has held numerous exhibitions in Australia and overseas.
In 2023 MAPh presented ZAHALKAWORLD – an artist’s archive, a major survey exhibition centred around the artist’s archive and brings together key bodies of work that span Zahalka’s practice presented alongside collected treasures from her archive that inform and inspire her. Encompassing material that was both personal and professional, intellectual and physical, these archival components have been incorporated into a recreation of her house-studio within the gallery space. Imaginative, immersive and playful, the exhibition invited audiences into the artist’s working life and her creative process to explore the illusionary worlds for which she is renowned. In 2023 she won the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize for her large scale installation Kunstkammer (2023).
Accompanying the exhibition was a major publication proudly supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Working with negatives taken there over 30 years ago during a residency at Bondi in 1989, I wanted to reflect on Bondi’s cultural and geological significance today. As a child of European migrants who came to Sydney, I look out across the ocean from where my parents came. Standing at the edge of this great southern land, I contemplate my place here; the weight of its history and the impact non-indigenous people have had on this land. As fires loom in the distance of that Black Summer, it is an ominous reminder on whose sacred ground we tread.
This work was exhibited as part of her 2023 survey exhibition at MAPh, ZAHALKAWORLD – an artist’s archive and was shortlisted in the 2022 Bowness Photography Prize.
Anne ZAHALKA
born Australia 1957
You Are On Bondi Bidjigal Land! 2020
pigment ink-jet print on cotton rag
115.0 x 190.0 cm
courtesy of the artist, ARC ONE Gallery (Melbourne) and Dominik Mersch Gallery (Sydney)
edition: 1/3 + AP
estimate: $9,000 – $11,000
Petrina Hicks (1972– ) Master of Fine Arts, University of Sydney, is an Australian artist who creates large-scale photographs that draw from mythology, fairy tales, and historical art imagery to re-frame the contemporary female experience.
Hicks has been exhibiting her works widely both nationally and internationally since 2003 and won the 2014 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize in with her work Venus (2013). In 2019 Hicks had a survey show at the NGV Petrina Hicks: Bleached Gothic.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being explores the relationship between ancient symbolism and contemporary life.
The human condition is ephemeral and fleeting, unlike the permanence of marble and stone relics from the past.
I’m interested in looking at how we attempt to reconcile our impermanent nature as human beings. The past remains recorded in these ancient vessels and when photographed alongside flesh the narrative explores the passing of time and the transitory nature of being human.
Petrina HICKS
born Australia 1972
The Unbearable Lightness of Being 2016
pigment ink-jet print
77.0 x 100.0 cm
courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Galleries (Sydney and Berlin)
edition: 6/8 + 2AP
estimate: $7,500 – $9,000
Justine Varga (1984- ) is an Australian artist widely recognised for her deliberative engagement with the practice of photography. Varga has exhibited her work in numerous public institutions nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of five national juried awards, including the Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture in 2017, and the Dobell Prize for Drawing in 2019. In addition, her work features in several published histories of photography. From 2023, Varga is reading towards a DPhil in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art, the University of Oxford. Varga’s photographs are included in many important public collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, and MAPh.
My title, End of violet, is from a diary that Mary Somerville penned in 1845, detailing her experiments on the colour spectrum and vegetable juices. These words are not to be found in the body of the text, but instead are inscribed within the table of contents: a voice from the margin that sets a tone for what is to come. Violet is at the end of the colour spectrum, and therefore at the very edge of vision. Pushing the limits of what can be perceptually known, Somerville’s experiments have led to the way colour is generated by the enlarger I use to produce my photographs in the darkroom today. I too am seeking the end of violet.
This work was Highly Commended in the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize.
Justine VARGA
born Australia 1984
End of violet (170Y50.5M3C) 2022–23
from the series End of violet
chromogenic print
160.0 x 125.0 cm
courtesy of the artist, Tolarno Galleries (Melbourne) and Hugo Michell Gallery (Adelaide)
edition: 2/5
estimate: $12,000 – $14,000
Murray Fredericks (1970- ) is an international award–winning artist and film maker, collected by significant public institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Portrait Gallery, MAPh, and the private collections of Elton John and Valentino. His projects have resulted in large-scale, minimalistic photographs and taken him through the terrains of Greenland, Lake Eyre and the Himalayas. His specialist knowledge of landscape has led to him to being highly regarded as a cinematographer and photographer, working on BBC/David Attenborough productions, The Dark Emu Story (2023), The Drover’s Wife (2021) and the television series Mystery Road (2018). His documentary film Salt (2009) won twelve major awards including the Melbourne International Film Festival, Camerimage ‘Golden Frog’ for Cinematography and Best Documentary Short at the International Documentary Association Los Angeles. This documentary travelled worldwide, including to Moscow, Amsterdam, and Washington DC.
A major survey exhibition of Fredericks practice was held at MAPh The salt lake (25 November 2023 – 18 February 2024) that brought together Salt, Array, Vanity and his most recent series, Blaze.
Murray Fredericks’ series Blaze presents naturally flooded landscapes twinned with a temporary flash of intense flame. Between the extremes of fire and flood, between an unstoppable water system and a real (but controlled) fire, Fredericks takes apart a moment in nature. In focusing on flame, Frederick captures a primal, human response to nature. This is done to spark a visceral response from the viewer:
'I have slipped in and made fire, flame, and – specifically – our evolutionary response to flame, into central themes of the work.' – Murray Fredericks, 2023.
This work was exhibited as part of Frederick's major survey exhibition held at MAPh entitled The salt lake (25 November 2023 – 18 February 2024).
Murray FREDERICKS
born Australia 1970
BLAZE #28 2023
from the series BLAZE
pigment ink-jet print
120.0 x 150.0 cm
courtesy of the artist and ARC ONE Gallery (Melbourne)
edition: 1/7
estimate: $9,000 – $11,000