Fine Art nominee

This is an image of a place that I often visit when I go for a walk in the evening. It is a place where children swing out on an old fire hydrant hose across the river and jump into the water. However, there is also an eeriness about it and recently a young woman's body was found nearby. In this work, I explore perceptions of this place and how those perceptions might be transformed as well as the associated emotions, uncertainty and disorientation that might be associated with the place.

The work is a recent addition to my practice which includes images of natural spaces that serve as metaphors for emotional and psychological experiences. Place is treated as a transformed and highly uncertain setting where the relationship of reality, to the viewer and the internal emotional world, is not considered to be fixed.

My practice concerns the intertwined relationship of people, place, space and time and I have been especially interested in moments of isolation, solitude, alienation and disempowerment in streetscapes and suburban landscapes. The transience and memory of self and place and the relationship between place and hyper-transformed emotional states have also been strong themes in my work. Works are often highly saturated, high contrast and/or disorienting images of natural spaces that serve as metaphors for emotional and psychological experiences.
I have often felt that marginalisation, disempowerment and alienation can be especially hidden in certain settings and my work often relates to that. My work has probably also been influenced by some debates about what is considered real and how our knowledge relates to that. Place seems to be a transformed and highly uncertain setting where the relationship of reality, to the viewer and the internal emotional world, is not fixed.
I have a Ph.D. (Social Psychology) and a Masters of Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Australia. I also study Photography at RMIT in Australia. I have won/been listed for various awards (e.g., Galloway Lawson Prize; Lumen Prize longlist) and regularly exhibit in artist-run galleries.