ANNE ZAHALKA wins William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize

Last night Sydney-based artist Anne Zahalka was named winner of the 2023 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize for her work Kunstkammer (2023).

Rhana Devenport (ONZM, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia) and Michael Cook (Brisbane-based contemporary photographic artist of Bidjara heritage) joined MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea to select the winner and three Honourable Mentions from a shortlist of 66 exceptional works.

The judges comments:

'Anne Zahalka’s archival project is a mammoth undertaking documenting a lifetime of practice, both monumental and intimate, this work is rare and important.' — Rhana Devenport

'I was looking for works that created an emotional response and was amazed with the depth in the entire field. Winner Anne Zahalka’s work stood out given the huge scale she has produced that travels beyond the two dimensions.' — Michael Cook

'Anne’s Zahalka’s ‘Kunstkammer’ is a tour-de-force reflecting a practice that she has sustained for more than 40 years. This work challenges assumptions about photography and how immersive and experiential it can be on a grand scale. It invites you into the artist’s process and innerworkings in a way few artists have ever achieved.' — Anouska Phizacklea

Visit MAPh to view this work, alongside the other incredible finalists.

JACKY REDGATE solo exhibition opens at Wollongong Art Gallery

JACKY REDGATE’S new, major solo exhibition Hypnagogia with Mirrors: Old and New Work, 1977-2023, has recently opened at the Wollongong Art Gallery.

Hypnagogia with Mirrors is an artist project that encompasses some of Jacky Redgate's best-known works along with others previously unseen, and new and archival materials. In her work, mirrors are at once means and metaphors, reflecting other times, other dimensions. This show is also site-specific, playing on the Wollongong Art Gallery’s architecture, history, and collection.

One of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, Redgate has a practice extending across six decades. Emerging within the contexts of late modernism, minimalism and conceptualism, and feminism, she is known for her photographic and sculptural works exploring systems and logics, impersonal and personal.

The exhibition is open 16 September-26 November 2023.

Jacky Redgate, Wedding Wishes, 1977, resin, doll head, plastic, fabric, 13.5 x 18.5 x 18.5cm.

HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT featured at Fotografiska Berlin in 'Nude'

HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT at Fotografiska Berlin opening today in the international exhibition, NUDE.

The exhibition features the works of thirty female-identifying artists from 20 different countries challenging traditional constructs around body politics. Through a diverse range of creative approaches, the artists explore the complexities surrounding the portrayal of nudity in art – and challenging the historical constraints attached to it.

NUDE addresses the centuries-long fascination with the naked body and explores the balance between “the nude” as an idealized form versus an honest, natural, and personal artistic expression.

Curated by Johan Vikner and Thomas Schäfer, from 14 September – 21 January 2024.

MURRAY FREDERICKS AND JANET LAURENCE at Sydney Contemporary

ARC ONE Gallery has brought together two giants of contemporary Australian art. A strong visual heartbeat runs through the new work of MURRAY FREDERICKS and JANET LAURENCE, who are presenting the extremities of fire and ice at Sydney Contemporary.

Murray Fredericks’ much-anticipated series BLAZE is debuting in Australia at the fair. Using non-destructive methods, Fredericks creates phantastic images of fire and flood by conjuring dramatic fires within vast deluged river systems. Janet Laurence presents an extraordinary new body of work addressing her passionate concern for the plight of Antarctica. Both artists have the capacity to arrest audiences in their tracks and this display asks us to sit with some of the most important questions facing our planet this century.

Fredericks’ BLAZE series has bewitched audiences across the world. Undeniably intense, there is a biblical quality to Fredericks’ images. The making of BLAZE was documented in a behind-the scenes film that accompanies the display at Sydney Contemporary, giving audiences a glimpse into the epic lengths Fredericks goes to capture the perfect image.

Janet Laurence’s breath-taking series Once Were Forests creates visceral waves of intense feeling. They address Laurence’s research into ice climates; as she says, “All these glacial experiences live with me”. She has visited places such as Antarctica and Iceland, and a great gravitas lays at the very centre of these beautiful, layered works. We see our own sense of urgency reflected in her compositions. There are few who can resist the enfolding testimony that Laurence offers. We are compelled not to look away.